The Washington herald., 1921-08-07

to feed the ever widening lake Of FIRE and
birthstone on the bottom of Kiisues.
could think of no other name for this won
drous sight than ''The Spillway Of Hades J!
In contrast with this are two craters on
the eastward windward flank Of kilauea,
each inverted cones, or funnel-like craters,
about 200 feet in diameter at the top, and
800 feet In depth. They are connected At
the bottom by q lava tube or conduit through
which one can pass, and are known as The
Twins"
And heavenly twins" indeed. they are.
Tropical trees and plants, Towering vines
and shrubs fill these ancient pit -craters,
long become quiescent. Their sides ars
laced with exquisite mosses and ferns. You
descend to the bottom along an easy trail
to find a profound silence and peace. broken
only by the sweet minstrelsy Of the small
but sprightly feathered birds that carol at
break Of day and make these charmed abodes
Of beauty and loveiness their trystinx
place. Looking up through the matted and
clinging greenery you catch glimpses here
and there of heavenly blue. On misty morn.
inss, in the dripping tropical verdurs,
gemmed with dew as the sun gathers
strength, your eyes are ravished with the
sight Of cleaning, full. rounded rainbows, or
wavering fragments Of bows, playing hide
and seek" amid the foliage whichever way
you turn your gaze. You are in a sunk'n
garden Of Natures own Incompatible nandi-
work, on the side Of a bleak volcano and
at the edge of the bleakest desert in all the
Paciic-the desert of Kau empty, void and
utterly waste.
TILAUEA used to be a mountain with
N summit crater but a much smaller
mountain than her neighbor, Mauna Loa.
twenty miles distant. The former inter
vening valley between Kilauea and Mauna
Loa was filed up ages ago with lava from
that great mountain. Kilauea was almost
completely submerged. leaving only her
mammoth, amphitheatrical crater exposed,
and a mountain plateau was brought into
being, sloping away and gradually falling
until it meets the verge OF the ocean. a.
nearest about twenty three miles.
Mauna Loa (Long Mountain) is we'll
is. also, one of the highest mountains OIL
our globe. Mount Everest is higher above
the level Of the sea, but Msuna Loa. while
only scoring 1915 feet above the spread Of
the ocean whose purple waters break in .
yeasty foam upon her leeward side, has her
base some Is 900 feet beneath the surface
of the sea, making almost $1,000 feet, all
told. From submarine base to sky top she
has Mount Everest's inches. with 3000- odj
feet to spare. And she is ours!
Her summit crater is nearly four miles
long and two wide, the depth approximatiuz Z
400 feet. and great fountains of molten lava
from 300 to 500 feet in air have played in
past eruptions from out this monster blow
hole. making the night SO brilliant that
letters could be read upon ships at sea as
far as ninety miles out.
The ascent of Mauna Loa is an arduous
one owing to the numerous past a-a, or
clinker lava flows, one must cross, and the
trails are exceedingly bad. But the toll and
strain are richly rewarded when the top Is
attained. It commands the entire main
group Of islands from Kauai to Hawaii, the
String of Pearls,' which Joaquin Miller
calls "A necklace for Columbia
ties side Of Msuna Loa, at q point 1000
feet above the sea, along a line Of seismic
riffs, that nineteen huge fountains Of molten
lava, some Of them reaching height of from
200 to 800 feet, began to play during my
visit. They continued to pour out their
liquid fire with diminishing intensity for
more than two weeks, producing what il
known as the Alika flow, from the name oi
a fishing hamlet at the brink of the ocean
cliff and in the course Of the fire. stream.
The inhabitants fortunately escaped in time
This stream of FIRE, fourteen miles In length
raced down the mountainside at high speed
at first. Its average velocity was abouI
twenty miles an hour. It's maximum widtf
was about 1900 feet at the spreading point,
its greatest depth shout twenty FIVE feet
according tn the conformation Of the land
It's dips and hollcws. and the character Of tn
channel bed. " plunged toto the sea owe
cliff about ninety feet In height "a cats
rset 81 living dsn.-settinr tn. ocean t.