The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1909-07-14
Letters From
the People

June 8, 1909 OF 1.-The h1lauea I'd
servatory,' my mind naturally revert
ed to a suggestion put forth in the
record I left in the Volcano House book
of my first visit to the Kilauea crater
in 1867, and perhaps I may be pardon
ed for calling attention to it on this
occasion. Possibly the record itself
may be of interest, if finding place in
your columns, and SO, Mr.. Editor,
forward you a copy thereof, somewhat
abbreviated:
Kilauea. Volcano House, Hawaii,
February 20, 1907.
The writer of these lines came from
England to Hawaii in 1850. In April,
1867, he first paid visit to this stu
pendous and wonderful laboratory OF
nature, and after lapse of forty years
he again finds himself lost in wonder
ment and delight in viewing the scenes
that, as younger man, filed his mind
with thoughts of the inconeeivable and
mighty forces at work, slowly changing
the aspect of this most interesting
locality.
On the occasion of my visit, April,
1867, the phenomena observable in the
pit of Halemaumau were of such ma
ture that no pen could adequately de-
scribe nor brush Of artist properly por-
tray the overpoweringly terrible and
yet beautiful scene that met the eye
on reaching the locus in quo of vol
eanic display, unique in its kind in the
whole world. Poor as are the words
that come to me, / feel constrained to
put on record my recolleetions of those
long-passed days. As near as can
remember, the depth of the pit was
not as great as at present, which is es-
timated 20 be about $50 to 400 feet
from the floor to the uppermost rim.
Utterly unlike, however, was the scene
my eyes rested on during two nights
l spent there of forty years now past
and gonel The floor of sshe pit is, |
am informed, about fifteen acres in ex-
tent, a little over third of which is
at present active February, 1900. At
the date of my first visit, 1867, the
whole bottom of the crater of Hale
maumau was one seething, boiling mass
of molten lava, lighting up the sky
with extraordinary brilliancy. The
molten liquid mass was tossed into
waves as is the ocean in a storm. It
was thrown in spray, if / may SO say,
over the top of the pit and dashed
| against the sides thereof with force
and fury.
In addition to this striking and in
tense activity in the great pit of Hale
| maumau, there were six soealled lakes,
each land all intensely interesting in
| the phenomena exhibited After my
| visit | wrote an account thereof to an
English scientific journal, and poor it
| probably was, for what pen could prop
erly portray in words the ravishment
| of the eye by the every varying beau
| ty of the scene? I will now endeavor
| to reproduce some of the impressions
made, regretting I have no copy of
| the letter describing the then remark
able phenomena, which / certainly can
never forget.
The molten lava which constituted
the tlakes'' was but few inches be-
low the level of the floor of the great
main pit of Kileauea. Ever and anon
! these lakes, from being almost white
| heat, become only brightly red and so
I Qo"A SndutS VI
| brillianey to the dullest of dull color
ing, and thence on to absolute black
ness, as the lowered temperature per
mitted a cooling and solidifying of
the surface of the erstwhile liquid
| mass. This blackness lasted but very
short time. In few minutes the com
paratively cool surface, contracting and
condensing, split up in innumerable di-
| rections, and, as the molten mass be-
low shone though the Enthusiastically
| shaped cracks, the eye felt smitten by
| the brilliant beauty Of the scene, cleo
| trio in its grandeur and glittering
| glory. The broken and divided masses
| toppled up and sank into the again
living lake of liquid lava. This aetiv-
| ity continued all through the night
| In those days Sir William Thomp.
| son, afterwards Lord Kelvin, was
making laboratory experiments touch
ing the cooling of a molten globe
and he described, from the experience
| gained, processes that / had looked
upon proceeding in one of nature S
| greatest laboratories, and that had a
| pertinent relation to the conditions be
was investigating. So came about the
writing and sending my letter forty
years lang syne.
! The Japanese government has mum.
| Der of trained and educated seismolo
| gists supplied with all necessary in.
| struments and apparatus to observe and
record phenomena so often occurring
in their beautiful country. They are
not wealthy people, but do as have
stated.
| There certainly should be a national
observatory at this wonderful and ae-
| cessible crater. The United States
Congress might well supply the means
( for its erection and for the payment
of a scientist to observe and record
the wonderful natural phenomena there
| to be observed.
| It is said the Kilauea Volcano House
does not always pay. Would it not be
| well for Honolulu business men to help
to make it do so, in order that it may
IN all respects be fit to receive the
| throng of guests that would always
find here much of interest and food
| for delightful thought, be the volcano
| active or quiescent?
| The locality is one that should be
| visited by all who can do so. A so
| journ of three or four weeks would to
many of our kamaainas be better than
| q trip to California
4 CHART ES L uApn