The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1894-03-27
THE BURNING CRATER.
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NJ. ir,ine's Description OF q n.cent
visit 10 the Domain ~ the
Goddess pste

our NluNlUk pulN through lilt UNM- ANA
burrows was such crooked course rs a
ily might take when climbing 10 the
upper part OF saucer thus reversed.
When you consider that the uneven
floor on which we walked was held i'm
place by the gases and fluids of the rest
less lake OF fire beneath, in spite Of the
many flows and cracks in the upper
crust, and that the fiery lakes
level was very high and at times over
flowing It's trembling banks. you will
have some idea of the peril of your
journey. The depression observable in
the upper part of "a reversed saucer cor
responds to the lake, and the rim Of the
saucer to its lava banks so that when
we entered the pit there were billions of
tons of seething liquid above us, likely
to burst through any part of the slopiDg
plain or over any section of the ohlOng
bank. Indeed, the entire floor sank 600
feet on the night of March q 1891, and
the fires disappeared until the 10th Of
April. And an hour after we had
passed over "a spot pronounced unusually
safe by the guide a flood of crimson
lava ran across it, and that night in
Vulnerable fountains of molten rock
poured over the lava banks, which
crumbled when dashed bv the furious
waves of flame.
The half-caste guide, on being ques-
toned. amused me by telling how he
had often made narrow escapes and how
the proprietor of the hotel and recent
party stood aghast when they suddenly
saw a spot forty feet square fall INTO the
lake Just after they had crossed il: how
people had sometimes been compelled
to run and jump for their lives, burning
the soles of THEN shoes off as they ran;
A A. LII. "A
fire suddenly rise-lakes from which no
human being could possibly have es-
capped. / then recalled the fact that
"the floor over hell" on which we were
walking was lifted into the air by a
tremendous explosion that destroyed
Chief Keonas army when pursued by
Kamehameha in 1889, at which time
shower of rock and cinders fell over an
area of many miles, accompanied by
sulphur fumes and escaping steam. The
entire pit often trembes, and is somt
times severely rent by earth.
quakes, especially when the lake
suddenly drops forty or fifty feet, as it
often does. One day there was 700 dis
tinct shocks, and the record at the hotel
shows that there were 800 violent
earthquakes on the night of March 9,
1886 At the same time the cones above
Halemaumau fell several hundred feet
into the boiling caldron, and for
months thereafter its walls were
plunged into the abyss below. That
was when the lake of fire was very low,
but it Is now level and overlooking.
No one knows whence come the
drains that sometimes empty the lake
or the surplus which makes it overflow.
The lava conduits must run to vast
supply i'm subterranean depths, for bill
lions of tons are required to cause the
known outhows. The reservoir of
lava must be in regions of eternal heat
and fusion, amid disrupting and dis
placing forces which no violence or.
prodigality of Kilauea can drain. For
ages upon ages the wonderful abyss has
done its work of melting mountains,
interrupted by occasional arrests as on
March Z, 1891, when the fires were sud-
Z denly extinguished for month, so that
Surveyor Joseph Emerson of Honolulu
explored the crater's bed for 600 feet
below the general level. But no one
can account for these caprices
Many visitors describe tremors and
rumbling sounds, blow holes and other
spectacles which were absent when l
saw the lower pit; but Kilauea is never
seen twice alike, because the volcanoes
work continually changes the displays
throughout the crater.
Finally l reached the summit of the
crumbling lava, cakes of which lay in
all directions, intercepted here by air
holes and melted there by fresh flows.
Faith led me on and on, though every
time the sheet of lava beneath me gave
way l had no assurance except the uni
form experience of others that should
not sink into the bowels Of the earth
instead of a few feet for no engineer
knows what cantilever system or law of
mechanics prevents the billions of tons
from falling into the lake and becoming
pillows of the blood red sea.
At last the abode of the fire goddess
Pele was before me, a hissing seething
lake of fire few feet from where
stood. Bursting areas of the molten
globe rose like swelling sea not ten
feet away, and | saw the liquid plane
through rising waves of hot air which
glistened and trembled until the eye was
panied. Steam and vapors escaped with
a thunderous Eroar from innumerable
vent holes, and tons of melted lava
were tossed into the air, showing that
nature can lift mountain as readily as
float feather. At intervals the surface
was struck by chilling breezes which
turned the red to sheen of silver.
The desolate sea on which | gazed was
upheld by the heat and gases of sub
terranean lava whose temperature is
beyond comprehension-so great as to
transform the solidest things into
vapors, not unlike the sun, itself a
seething globe of compressed gases.
A trip to the crumbling edge of this
restless region of fire cannot be COM
pared to anything on earth with which
people are familiar, nor can one who
beholds it fully comprehend its awful
ness. Like Niagara and Yosemite, like
Haleakala, palace of the SUM an ex-
tinct crater on the Island of Maui, into
which the city of New York could be
dropped : like these, / alemaumau
grows on one after repeated visits and
sober reflection, until finally its effect is
so overpowering and awe-inspiring as
to become forever the symbol of the
terrible in nature. the most tremendous
force ever beheld by mortal eyes. Its
sixteen acres of restless flame can never
be forgotten.
Many startling problems are suggested
to one who stands by the edge of Kila-
ueals boiling abyss and tries to fathom
the mystery of its origin. Does the
terrific fire extend seven thousand
miles below ones feet, according to the
popular hypothesis that assumes the
earth's crust to be mere egg shell, and
the interior molten mass? Is the
volcanic lake merely defect or break
in the earths crust, like an air hole in a
frozen seaT II so, Niagara might
thunder into such chasm for a
thousand centuries without filling it,
and ten thousand Pacific oceans emp,
tied into the auful depths
where Halamaumau begins would
not rise TO the level of lis
liquid fires. On the edge of this Ha.
waiian sphinx, therefore, one is brought
face to face with the Infinite and com.
pared with the energy beheld in it,
varied phenomena all other spectacles
ever beheld on earth are dwarfed into
absolute insignificance. Under such q
view its quiyerings become the pulsa