The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1892-10-08
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TWO MIGHTY VOLCANOES.

the Largest In the World.
The scenery of windward Hawaii is
charming and picturesque in the ex-
IRENE. Three huge volcanic mountains,
Mauna Loa. Mauna Kea, and Hualalai.
rear their snow-capped domes against
the sky to the height of fourteen
thousand feet, forming a triangle
toward the center Of the lind, their
slopes clothed with dense rests of
richest tropical growth d ii grassy
plains which trend gradually away
to the blue Pacific. They are scanned
with numberless ravines or ''gulches,"
not to call them canyons" and down
each river flows to the sea varying in
width from one hundred to two thou
sand feet. Many are nearly mile
wide. The waters OF some, small and
quiet, glide peacefully between
meadowy banks to their final destina-
ton Others, fierce, impetuous mount
ain torrents, hemned in by high, pre-
cipitous rocks, dash headlong over
bowlder and precipice till they lose
themselves in the dimpling ocean.
Nearly all are liable to sudden and ire
mendous freshets. Cascades and water
falls leap from the hills in all directions
and everywhere trees and rocks are
covered with exquisite ferns and trail
ing parasites OF all shades and kinds.
The "gulches widen out at their ex-
tremities and the sea sweeps into them
with drowsy, booming music. Many
journey taken is but q continuous
series Of descents and ascents across
these ''gulches"
Thus on the road between Hilo and
Laupahaehae no fewer than sixty-five
streams must be crossed IN a distance of
thirty miles Having ridden for few
hundred yards along lofty upland the
brink of a stupendous precipice is sud-
denly reached, q murmur of water from
the depths below, and in front Is the
equally perpendicular precipice On the
other side of the tiny valley. A bird
would skim across in few seconds;
poor, wingiess man has to trust to tho
unshod; sure-footed beast under him to
scramble up and down the narrow,
scarcely winding tracks cut out on the
faces of the mountains. On slippery
aescents the creature will gather all
his legs under him and slide On the
more rugged paths he frequently has to
leap over masses of rock, some three
feet high, produced by breakage, and
this on path where false step means
death. Dense vegetation often blinds
one to the risks incurred.
Hawaii is chiefly famous for its vol
canoes Kilauea, the largest active vol
cano in the world, lies ON the side of
the mountain Msuna Loa, at an eleva-
ton of four Thousand feet. We usually
think of an elevation as a cone, but
Kilauea is rather a great sunken
pit, in the midst of vast desolate
plain, which slopes up gently
to the summit of the mountain. It
is a pit no less than nine miles in cir
conference, and the area of its lowest
level is six square miles. The level
varies; but it is at present six hundred
feet below the surrounding country,
and is reached by a steep descent down
the sheer face Of a precipice, which ex-
tends right around the crater. and, as
it were, walls il in Within the crater
toward it's southern end, is an inner
crater, with one or more lakes of fire,
rallied Halemaumasa, or House of Ever
lasting Burnings, which constitute the
true chimney of the volcano Here
Kiiauea exhibits its ceaseiess activity.
In the outer crater occasional grand
eruptions occnr, but signs on the siuln-
bering forces below are ever present in
the form Of blowing cones and steam
cracks, varying in size from narrow
clefts 70 great assures, from which issue
puffs and clouds of steam, fumes of hot
poisonous gases, and from some liquid
lava Ihe genaral bed is made up OF
countless lava flows, of variety OF
forms and contortion difficult to des-
cribe in the words of every-da life 1t
has been Hkened to rippling sea sud-
denly fossili1ed. There are streams,
rivers lakes. cliffs, terraces, waterfalls,
and concealed raindrops of pctrifed
lava. Some of it appears like huge coils of
rope. The ever-working inner crater is
of course liable to almost daily change.
At times 1t is surrounded by circle of
crags, thrown up from the lake in
molten state and solidified as they rose.
They tower above the level of the outer
basin to the height of four hundred to
six hundred feet.
From the top one gazes downward
into a sea Of liquid fire. Soon the crags,
undermined by the forces below. may
topple over into the lake, only to be
melted afresh and once more upheaved.
When this takes place FIRE is often
choked, and dense volumes Of smoke
and steam and Pickering flames issue
from the vast pit The terrible erup-
tons which from time to time have
threatened Hilo with humiliation have
almost invariably occurred not in con-
Aection with Eilauea-which usually
confines it's ebrllitions within it's own
circling wsll-but with Molsuaweoweo,
on tho very summit OF Mauna LoS.
When this shows signs of life danger is
60 be apprehended. The immense
height at which it is situated lends
fearful impetus to a lava flow.
On the island of Mani is Haleakala
blouse Of the SUM. the largest known
extinct volcano in the world. it's giant
crater pit resembling the yawning era
tiers in the moon, being twenty-four
miles in circumference and two thou- !
sand feet deep. Sixteen subsidiary
cones rise from it's bed. some solitary,
others in clusters. The base of she
nountain itself has a circumference of
sinety miles. On the island of Molokai
j Kalamoa, a fertile valley of about
twenty thousand acres walled in by !
preoipaces three Thousand feet high.
Here IL the home of the lepers. All
who contract the disease are exiled