The Hawaiian gazette., 1905-07-21

He LAVA SPoUTS.
c,.cI.c-.0-.S.S.,S.0.0.o
that Pit and not feel that, although It
is certainly great effort for the ac
complishment of SO little a thing. the
fires of Halemaumau were kindled
J especially for his destruction. Kilauea.
1t is true. is very well behaved
| crater. Nobody has ever been killed
there. at least within historic times.
| But still, but still, volcano is a vol
cano, and the forces of nature are
merciless. Nature, because she Gre
ates, also destroys without compunc-
ton, and you are a mighty small fac
tor in her economy. However you are
important to yourself, about the most
important thing there Island If you
are like me- you feel certain hesi-
fancy in trusting yourself around
| Where there is a volcano loose. Be.
cause, IL the crater were to begin to
act up, you could not do anything to
stop 1t. You have three miles of lava
between you and the real earth. when
you stand on, the brink of the Fit, and
you could not even get out of the way.
1t would not do you any good to try.
THE PIT CHANGING.
And so, while you go about from the
FIT TO Pele's kitchen, and Little Beg
gar, and visit the caves, and even take
your heart into your mouth and descend
into these, hurrying over the hot
places and not lettering particularly
over the places that are less hot, and
while you are drawn back to the brink
of the Pit again and again to look at
the fire, which fascinates you, there IS
a sense of unsafety with it all not
strong enough to make you wish that
you had not come but still ever pres
ent. Maybe it adds the charm of the
needed spice of danger.
The lava in the floor of the main
crater is scanned with large and small
cracks, and in places these have been
red hot since the present season of
activity in the Pit began. There seem,
indeed, to be lines of heat that radate
from the Pit across the lava bed, a
line running toward the summit Of
Mauna Loa. another in the direction of
the line of craters that go down to the
sea through Puma, another toward the
smaller adjacent crater called Kilauea-
posite to that.
Close to. the Pit of Halemaumou
which has been Increased in size ap-
probably since the beginning of the
present outbreak, for the walls having
broken down on every side save one,
there is a series of hot cracks that ex-
tend all around the Pit and at about
an equal distance from 1t on all sides
| This line of cleavage Seems to mark
the radius of the underfiow of lava, and
1t would not be at all surprising If at
any moment there would be a cave in
all around the line, or If surface flow
tshould begin anywhere on the line Of
the crack.
In fact, the lava within this line Is
already beginning to break down, as
though its support was being with
drawn. I visited the crater every day
during six days, and I noticed changes
from day to day in the surface of the
lava within this heated line. 1t is one
of the peculiarities of Kilauea that
part of the lava upon which the visitor
stands to watch the volcanic phenom-
ena one day should have vanished on
/ the next.
PIT FILLING UP.
There can be small doubt that the
Pit of Halemaumau is filling with lava
That is a thing that has happened
to it several times in the past.
OF course, having seen the volcano
very little, do not know enough about
it to venture a prediction as to what
is likely to happen there, but should
say from present appearances and
from what has been told me by those
who have seen the crater at it's best
that 1t will be better in a month from
now-or, rather. more active, than 1t Is
now. And that perhaps the old lake of
fire may come back again before the
year is out.
Seen in the daytime from the brink
of the Pit, the manner of its filling is
very apparent. The lava is flowing
from two cones, one on either side,
and from a place in the wall perhaps a
hundred and fifty feet above the floor.
One of the cones, strangely enough,
seems to give out dull, red, steady
flow. while from the ether there comes
the peculiar beating that shakes the
crater, and with every beat gouts of
lava are thrown hundred feet into the
air from the very apex of the cone.
1t is the beating of the lava in this
cone that gives the effect of the sea
OF fire, a moaning as OF sea waves
accompanying the beating, but the
whole underfow of the Pit seems
liquid. too. Is it possible that there are
two sources of lava supply In the Pit
and that the flows come separately?
Anything in geology is pc sibie-when
a man knows SO little of it as know.
The gouts of lava from the spouting
] cone, and the flows. are red in the