The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1908-09-25
HOW LAVA ROSE
IN HALEMAUMAU

we were JOlu, marked the Ure pit. IL
didn't look very promising, and added
nothing to the impressiveness of the
scene but we hadn't seen yet what it
hid.
| forget to say that all around the
Volcano House and along the road as
we approached it, were cracks in the
ground from which smoke or steam
was constantly issuing. We soon learn
ed that this is characteristic of the
country for several miles in every di-
rection from the volcano. Near the
hotel a spring impregnated with sui
phur and almost scalding hot, has been
utilized for bathing purposes. It's
warm proposition all right for we tried
it later. They put you in a sort of
wooden box which has hole for your
head, and in about two minutes you
have no doubt that you have direct
connections with the lower regions. 1t
has any Russian bath beat a mile.
After lunch we started on foot for
the pit There were half dozen or SO
of us in this bunch, and others came
on afterwards on mule and horseback.
We got down to the floor of the main
crater after following a very steep zig
gag trail for fifteen or twenty minutes
1--WE came up good deal slower) and
found ourselves in another wonder
land. You've seen photographs of the
surface of the moon taken through a
big telescope-well we didn't have to
imagine bit to believe that we were
making a lunar exploration. That
big black plain that looked as smooth
as floor from the top of the cliff, was
anything but smooth 1t rolled in
fantastic waves from a few feet to a
hundred in height. Great cracks
spread in every direction, some of them
a dozen feet in width, and how deep,
l have no idea Some of them gave
off smoke and sulphur fumes, and
later we found some giving off heat
sufficient to set fire to sticks thrust
down them. 1t is a favorite stunt of
tourists to buy post cards at the hotel
and scorch the edges over these hot
cracks, before mailing them as souve-
Mrs. They also bring coffee and va
rious edibles which they cook to a
nicely over this natural range. The
only drawback with this is that one
has to stand on his range while he
cooks, and you would need asbestos
soled shoes to do it very long.
Everywhere it seemed as though the
lava might have flowed out of the hun
dreds of little cones and cracks only
yesterday, and it was often hard to
believe that one would not sink into a
soft mass as we walked over CLASSY
like surface. If you have ever seen a
barrel of pitch or coal-tar melted by
the sun, and spread over the ground
like thick molasses, and afterwards
hardened into waves and fantastic
shapes by a cooling atmosphere, and
can imagine such a surface magnified
a hundred times and spreading out for
miles around you, you have some pic
ture of the floor of the crater of XII
lauea. Flows had occurred on top
of other flows; lava cones had, per-
haps hundreds of years ago, been built
up by the liquid mass from the interior
of the earth being forced out through
some crack, and solidifying as it reach
ed the surface; great floods of white
hot molten rock had welled up to the
surface and spread over acres of sur
face at time, to quickly harden into
a porous, honey-combed, mass, and to
split into deep assures by the con-
traction which came with cooling. Ii
places the flows have hardened into
solid cascades, where the lava had roll.
ed in a thick plastic mass over some
precipice, cooling so quickly that every
detail of the flow is preserved.
AS you walk over the surface of this
lava desert, the brittle crust breaks
and crunches under foot with a sound
and sensation as walking on coarse dry
snow or broken ice. The particles
however, are as hard and sharp as glass
crystals, and don't do thing to ones
shoes.
l am taking you through the crater
slowly as we made it. We had beer
told that the fire in the central pit hat
disappeared, SO we took our time il
making the three and a half mile:
across the main floor Nobody cared
particularly whether the pit was active
or not, for the wonder of that grea
frozen moon-surface was fast upon all
One man expressed the sentiment o
everybody when he declared that h,
wouldn't have missed the trip for $500
agreed with the rest, but with a mem
: tai If for my bank account isn't 81
fat as his is.
} Finally we reached the pit. 1t i
called by the native name, Halemau
mau, which means THE Sooty House.
I think. 1t is another great hole, al
most circular in shape, and about $50
} feet in diameter; with sides that drop
ped vertically from the floor of tn
great main crater to a depth of per