St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1894-01-19
WORLDS GRANnEsr VOLCANO
How the Lava Made Hawaii
Wild Life TllePeabouts.

now the Lava MRQo HAWAI-
Wild Life Whereabouts.
Ihave no spite against the reader of
this article. | shall, therefore, not add
one to the 200 and odd descriptions of
kilauea now extant. AS the raw att0r-
ney who began his maiden speech by
telling what the common law is was
directed by the judge Ito assume
thing and not be so arrogantIy
Instructive" so L shall assume
that the reader has read the old Fifth
Reader, and the usual Sunday school
book, and at least one general work of
travel. and that he takes at least one
good weekly paper, in which case he
must have seen half DOZEN descrip-
tions. will only say that OF the many
have read since leaving the islands.
that of Mark Twain seems to me the
best. ana then go OIL to mention few
points which astonished me and are
not generally mentioned in the ac-
counts.
The first is the course of the lava. l
had an idea that it dashod down the
mountain side in q ''mad torrent" but
1t doesn't. AT any rate, it never does un-
less when the quantity is enormous and
while il is still so hot as 10 maintain
great tiuIdity. Almost always always
IN small StreamS-iL maintains a sluggish
flow, like warm tar or thin mush, and
as IL flows the surface Is rapidly cooling
and forming sort of case. The molten
Interior bursts up through this. and the
outflow cools again. and this is repeated
so often that moderate stream of lava
often assumes the appearance OF a great
cylinder slowly creeping down. Even
I val "
cool the thing is really an enormous
tube, down the interior of which tn
hot ana pastyI lava is slowly forcing its
way, -,s - .s
And this is the reason few or no lives
are lost i'll all ordinary eruption. One
call walk up TO the advanced end of the
stream. gather little of 1t into mod
of any desired shape, ana all without
danger, and this though the cylinder or
tube may be ten feet thick. The sec
ond fact that astonished me was
the location of the crater. Mauna
loa is the mountain and Kllauea is the
crater, aud Kliauea Is hot really Oh
Mauna Loa-that is, not on top OF it..
1t Is indeed but one-third as high, and,
SO far as sea level is concerned, no
higher than Salt Lake City. 1t is, so TO
speak. d boil OH the flank OF Mauna Loa.
and yet the crater itself does not
overflow. When the lava pressure
bec0mes toe great 10 be restrained it
breaks out somewhere away down the
mountain side. By and by, the rock
Sharps" say, it will burst out away off
shore, and then we shall have an addition
TO Hawaii.
Another fact. and very surprising
fact indeed to me, was that the nearer
| one gets to the Volcano the mere heath
enlSh the natives are. This lutte fact
'.stumps my philosophy" as they say at
Harvard, but it certainly Is fact. In
the Islands of Kauai, Oahu and Maui l
did not see a sign in the common life of
the people that there had ever been idol
airy there, but with every miles travel
toward the volcano L saw more signs
till, as We emerged from the forest OH
the rock Hat near the hotel, Our native
attendants showed themselves regular
Pele fanatics. Even ..Old Antony" the
guide, recommended 20 US especially
for his Christian character, ''DackSlid''
wnen he saw smoke and limited 1t might
he as we'll to gather some berries 20 offer
as a sacrifice. This comical retrogres-
sion in faith equally with progression i'll
altitude reminded me of the formula in
use In Texas when was there in 1857 :
There was 10 Sunday west of the
no God west of the Colorado
They say that the topography is the
cause of this local backsliding. Maybe
SO, but it is almost impossible TO de-
scribe the topography. Ill truth. very
large part OF Hawaii consists of high
tabIeiand lnclosed In 4 sort OF triangle
between the three great mountain peaks
OF Mauna Loa. Mauna Kea and Mauila
Hualaiai, and this plateau is dreadful
wilderness of tropical vines and giant
trees, growing among and hiding i'm
mense rocks and creYices, with here and
there bare field of splintered lava or
loose ashy stuff, and more rarely a
fertile little valley. In this region the
cattle introduced by early voyagers
have left progeny as wild as any buff
falo of the oIden time, and much more
dangerous. But along the borders of
the island, the north especially, are