The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-01-01
BEAUTY
SPOTS OF
HAWAII
BY REV S. E. BISHOP.

most varied kinds, rivalling any ctner
spot on the Earth's surface. There ale
no pain or monotonous areas in this
group. Here one is never apart from
the immediate proximity of mountain
and ocean in endiessly varied combina-
tions.
A popularity of all these islands is
the continued change in the form and
combination OF scenery. These forms
seldom seem to repeat themselves. One
can travel but a few miles on any ISL
and without opening fresh and wonder
full combinations of grandeur and
beauty. For example, the three or four
hours ride down the railway from Ho-
nolulu will give one every half hour an
entirely fresh arrangement OF striking
scenery, each quite unlike all the others.
A. chief element in this variedness
of impressive forms lies in the fact of
a regular graduation in the ages of the
five principal islands, SO that the
weathering of numberiess centuries has
ASNSIOpC0 CASAs5C6 VI 1OAAA "AAAoA S~A
less or more advanced. These islands
lie in chain stretching 300 miles from
northwest to southeast. The oldest ISL
ands are at the northwest end, while
at the southeastern extremity, the vast
bulk OF Mauna Loa is still in process of
upbuilding.
Hence the northeast islands are fear
fully eaten out and worn down by the
storms of long ages, while at the other
end the mountains retain more or less
of the tropical form in which they
were originally piled up.
BUILT UP BY LAVA LAYERS.
Indeed far beyond Kauai at the
northwest, stretches a chain of islets
which are the gravestones of the sunk
en- predecessors of Hawaii. A few of
these still protrude volcanic rock-pin-
nacies above the surges. Most of them
show only coral reefs. which tell. like
marble monuments, of the ancient col
canoes now subsidized in the ocean
depths The farthest of this long chain
Of islets is Midway, 1900 miles away,
where is the next station beyond Homo
We learn how every one of these ISL
and mountains was built UP by observ-
ing the process now in operation on
Mauna Loa. For a. century past white
men have seen at intervals of five
ten years streams of lava pouring out
from various points on the upper
mountain at attitudes of six to twelve
thousand feet. Each fiery torrent may
be estimated to have plastered over
with fresh rock to an average of ten
feet, areas ranging from five to thirty
square miles. AT that rate the whole
mountain dome might grow ten feet
higher in about one thousand years.
AT that rate it would have required
a million years to build up the present
vast bulk of Mauna Loa, whose base
is forty miles in diameter and which
is 1900 feet in height. But there can
be no doubt that the earlier stages of
its growth were far more rapid, by
more copious ana frequent eruptions.
GENTLY SLOPING DOMES.
1t was the writer's privilege in 1886
to witness the last stages of a lava
flow on the S. S. w. flank of Mauna
Loa, which after four days of action
had run ten miles to the sea and filed
mile of new land. The onrushing food
of fiery liquid rock, crested with half
molten clinkers, had swept down with |
a continuous crash as of a thousand |
loaded coal trains plunging to wreck. |
The form of mountain thus originally |
built up is that of a broad, gently Stop |
ing dome, which in the case of the two |
chief mountains of Hawaii is nearly |
1900 feet high. with from forty, to fifty |
miles breadth of base. Their long
slopes seem but slightly diversified by |
various cinder cones, and by occasional |
broken down pits or calderas of great /
breadth and depth, which have been
areas Of volcanic activity. These two /
vast mountain masses stand forth out |
of the ocean in sublime simplicity of |
form, crowned with fleckings of per-
petual snow.
CRATER OF HALEAKALA.
AS one voyages to the northward |
past these young giant mountains sue |
cessive mountain masses come into |
view which show clear traces of the |
same original dome-forrn; but they are |
greatly shattered by arth-convulsions |
and eaten out of shape by the beating |
storms OF long ages. Kohala Mountain |
at the north end of the large island has |
been broken by twin faults or crevasses |
on the northeast shore. The main |
fault has dropped some ten miles of the |
seward mass of the mountain into the |
ocean, leaving a coast line of giant |
precipices reaching two thousand feet |
high. A parallel fault three miles inland
forms a vast gaping gorge which ends
at the great Waipio canyon.
Thence crossing a channel of thirty
miles to the next island of Maui, an
other huge dome stands. but fearfully
shattered and worn. This is Haleakala,
10000 feet in height. The summit of
this dome seems to have broken open
by the settling away of the submarine
foundations on its south side. On that
side the summit has broken apart into
several great mountain pyramids. Be