Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-02-07
The Present Eruption.

During today I have interviewed some of
the visitors to the eruption, who reached
home this morning, but derive from them
no new data of Importance. They had de-
lightful weather. The lava of the three new
flows had nowhere reached the sea. It
seems unlikely from it's present rate of
progress that it will do so. A majority of
the passengers landed below the main flow,
and trudged nearly five miles across the
sharp, rugged clinkers to its front which
was advancing at a rate of about ten feet
In an hour. This stream front was a slowly
moving wall of clinkers from Is to 100 feet
In height, and about 500 feet in breadth
The slow. resistless motion of the clinkers
as they rolled forward was attended by a
thunderous clatter like rolling bones. From
out the moving wall occasionally broke
forth stream of fiery lava, from the in
ternal fusion which was bearing them on
Its surface.
A good deal of incandescence inland was
perceptibie from the ships before daylight.
After the sun rose the great smokiness in
the interior INSTRUCTED any distinct view of
fires inland. ssTheir one impressive spectacle
was that advancing mound of clinkers. One
object of much interest to all was kind
of huge boulder seen floating apparently
on the front of the lava-fow. In J@1y
1889, had the privilege of inspecting the
internal structure of one of these boulders
or "lava-bombs' in the company of the en-
inent Seologist, Dina, at Punaluu. It must
have been many hundreds of years old. 1t
was oval, perhaps eight feet long, and hol-
low. One side was partly broken away, dis
closing a bunch of loose spongy clnkers,
filing a shell about six inches thick.
Formation of Bombs"
Apparently the flowing lava picks up a
loose bunch of such clinkers, rolling them
over and over, and coating them outside
with a shell of lava, after which they roll
and float on Indefinitely. In January 1881
/ saw such a -omb, ten feet long, perched
on the very brink of the great clinker flow
over the sea. Probably the waves soon
washed away its supporting clinkers. Near
ly all of these bombs go to pieces during
transit.
loa and reached point six or eight miles
inland, where they saw a considerable lake
Of fire, also long stream with cascades of
fire. No doubt many things of greater in
tereSt could be seen by taking longer time
on shore.
Kilauea volcano is credibly reported to
be extremely active, with its great pit
boiling furously. Probably there Is no
sympathy with the Kahuku activity fifty
miles away. An exciting cause common to
both Is no doubt a very exceptional cop
iousness of rainfall during six weeks past.
The excess of water percolatlng into the
interior depths has probably reached the
regions of heat and stirred up the eXplos-
i've activities stored therein. 1t would be
interesting to compare the precise dates
of our Kau eruption and the Jamaica earth
quake, which seem to have been nearly
simultaneous. Ours began to stir about 6
pm. of January g. which would be about
the following midnight at Jamaica. But
It is utterly improbable that the two
movements were in any way related.
AS intimated above, we have been having
a very rainy winter season. about twenty
five inches Of rain in Honolulu during the
past eight weeks. And there have been
some quite heavy gales, and lately heavy
thunder and lightning over this island Of
Oahu. We are SO accustomed to our usual
bright day weather that these dark rainy
weeks have seemed very tedious. Our
temperature in Honolulu now has usual
daily range from sixty to seventy-five de-
grees. In midsummer 1t Is from seventy
four to eighty-six degrees. We never have
sweltering weather like yours in Washing
ton. SERENO E. BISHOP.