Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-05-17
HAWAII'S VOLCANOES

Some of these days old Mauna Loa is
undoubtedly going to get real busy again.
and then the people Of the United States
| will know how 1t feels to have lively vol
cano working within their own domains"
remarked a naval officer in commenting
upon the horror at st. Pierre. II have
taken a look at most Of the worlds famous
volcanoes, and in my opinion Mauna Loa.
on the main island of Hawaii. Hawaiian
Islands. dwarfs them all in obvious potency
and possibilities for deviiment. Mount Pc
lee, the Martinique volcano that blew its
head off much after the fashion of an over
strained cylinder head, was only a small
| matter over 4CO0 feet in height, but Mauna
Loa is only a few feet shy of 1900 feet
high Just how surprisingly beautiful ana
inspiring in all of Its menacng grandeur
Mauna Loa is is not to be told of by any
man not possessing marvellous gift of
language. Its peak is crested with eternal
snow; ana the white barrenness Of its up
per slopes. as contrasted with the glorious
green of the sugar-cane lying below on all
or the piateaus of the fairy island. is some
thing indescribabIy weird and uncanny.
But Ii nobody has actually gained the
crest of Mauna Loa. plenty have had the
opportunity to gaze into the horrific depths
OF old Mauna Loa's perenniaily active side
partner, the so-called Burning Lake OF
If my memory serves me, below the Mauna
Loa crater and some twenty-eight or thirty
miles above the thriving city of Hilo. Hlo
was pretty nearly put out of business some
thirty-odd years ago by combined over
now OF lava from both of the craters,
Mauna Loa and Kilauea, and on that oc-
casion hundreds of whites and Kanakas
| had to take to the water to save their lives
But, strangely enough, people who live
der the constant menace of volcanoes grad
uaiiy seem to lose their fear of those most
destructive natural agents known to man.
hino. Ihere is no calculable amount OF
gold or precious stones that would induce
me to take up residence In Hiio, dream
lily beautiful and inviting as the place is;
YET the Hilo foiks some of whom well re-
| MEMBER the last eruption of Mauna Loa
| ana hiiauea, appear to go their ways with
| little thought Of the calamity that always
| hangs over them. Contiguity to a volcano
seems TO make fataiists of human beings.
Mauna Loa? kilauea" the Hilo peo-
pie reply when you ask them if they
| do not stand in fear of those appalling era
| ters' ON, yes. the danger is always great,
OF course. We all feel that, without ever
really thinking much about it. We are
| used to the threats of that twain of devils
| But we must die some time, must we mott
About the bravest family 1 ever met
with, all In all, is that of Peter Lee the
man who runs the Volcano House, which
STANDS almost on the very brink of the
burning Lake Of Kilauea. Peter is an
a s,,hiah Dane or Norwegian l forget
| winch He has pretty wife and a lot OF
exceedingly beautiful grown daughters ana
! they all live there at the hotel happy and
contented. with as much of horror as Dore
| ever conceived all around them. Peters
| motel is a good one and he has been run
| ming 1t for many years. Most of his chill
dren were born almost at the mouth of
kllauea but for all that their nerve amid
Such desperate environment is singular
| You remember how Gen. Sherman de-
scr1bed war? Well. his description of war
| nus kliauea- kilauea is about as close
| approximation of the bad place as ever L
| want to see. happened to gaze into its in
| Iernai depths at time when it was doing
I hot business with itself, and l can tell
you that when l regained Hilo and pulled
| away from that port in of the Wilder
boats l was whole lot more cheerful than
! l mad ever been while sojournng on the
| Island of Hawaii.
The crater of Kilauea Cts pronounced
| kiil-aW-ay-a) struck me as being about
| three-quarters Of mile in diameter Just
| how deep it is is only known to the Plu-
tonians, and / wasn't sufficiently anxious
| TO meet any of those persons to make in
qulrles as to the exact figures. Anyhow,
the whole inner works of Kilauea are
a-bubble all the time, and when the old era
ter oeglnS to get to working overtime a
horrifying sheet of flame rises and falls in
| the enormous cavity like a pulse often
pushing itself from the depths almost to
! the very top of the mouth. The Volcano
House stands only little matter of
| couple of hundred feet away from the
verge of the Burning Lake, and all around
| the hotel are steaming sulphur pits filled
with the marveously beautiful yellow crys-
tails. These sulphur pits are breaking out
| In new spots all the time. and Peter Lee
| told me that he had to keep tamping away
all the time to prevent his hosiery from
being engulfed. Then. rising away still
| thousands OF feet higher. is the snowy sum-
init, old in story, as well as in tendish-
ness, OF Mauna Loa. kiauea is an outlet
for the superf1uous energy of Mauna Loa,
and scientists declare that if it were not
"a f1nf Il ttal
would be in state Of eruption all the time
thus rendering life on the phenomenalIy
| beautiful and productive Island of Hawaii
\ out Of the question.
"On the steep ride from Hilo I'D to Kill
| auea. which you can make either by stage
| or on horseback. you may see charred evil
| dences OF former eruptions all around you.
| The thick tropical vegetation ceases a few
| miles above Hilo and as you ascend the
great slope you have an oppressive feeling
that all OF the world about you has been
smitten by the wrathful hand of the Al
| mighty. There are scattered and bare
trees, charred by former eruptons but still
| standing in all Of their suggestive misery,
and time and again you pass great deep
| runnels made by vast streams of lava that
| have flowed swiftly down the mountain side
| when Mauna Loa and kilauea have emitted
their barbaric yawps: AS you approach
| kilauea the air becomes chill and the sun
| seems TO emit no heat at all-only wan,
| yellowish light with no warming properties
! SO that when you reach Peter Lees estab-
| lishment you are glad to snuggle for a bit
beside one of his open fires or lean close to
| one of the surrounding sulphur pits for the
warmth proceeding therefrom.
| One of the things that strikes me as
queer in connection with the Martinique
! cataclysm is that the vicious volcano should
| have been named Mount Pelee.' Now the
Kanaka Goddess of Volcanoes is the God
| dess Pele, pronounced by the Hawaiians
almost exactly the Martiniquans pro-
nounced their Mount 'Pelee' and vet the
| one is a distinctiyely French and the other
distnctively Kanaka word The Goddess
Peie, before the outstanding of the ISL
ands, was supposed by the oid-time Kama
kas to be in perpetual state of threaten
| ing wrath. and when she gave evidence OF