The Story of Hawaii (Illustrated Edition). Fowke Gerard

      Crater of Haleakala volcano

      By daylight the lake of fire is a greenish yellow, cut with ragged cracks of red that look like pale streaks of stationary lightning across its surface. It is restless, breathing rapidly bubbling up at one point and sinking down in another; throwing up sudden fountains of scarlet molten lava that play a few minutes and subside, leaving shimmering mounds which gradually settle to the level surface of the lake, turning brown and yellow as they sink. But as the daylight fades the fires of the pit shine more brightly. Mauna Loa, behind, becomes a pale, grey-blue, insubstantial dome, and overhead stars begin to appear. As darkness comes the colours on the lake grow so intense that they almost hurt. The fire is not only red; it is blue and purple and. orange and green. Blue flames shimmer and dart about the edges of the pit, back and forth across the surface of the restless mass. Sudden fountains paint blood-red the great plume of sulfur smoke that rises constantly, to drift away across the poisoned desert of Kau. Sometimes the spurts of lava are so violent, so exaggerated by the night, that one draws back terrified lest some atom of their molten substance should spatter over the edge of the precipice. Sometimes the whole lake is in motion. Waves of fire toss and battle with each other and dash in clouds of bright vermilion spray against the black sides of the pit. Sometimes one of these sides falls in with a roar that echoes back and forth, and mighty rocks are swallowed in the liquid mass of fire that closes over them in a whirlpool, like water over a sinking ship. Again everything is quiet, a thick scum forms over the surface of the lake, dead, like the scum on the surface of a lonely forest pool. Then it shivers. Flashes of fire dart from side to side. The centre bursts open and a huge fountain of lava twenty feet thick and fifty high streams into the air and plays for several minutes, waves of blinding fire flowing out from it, dashing against the sides until the black rocks are starred all over with bits of scarlet. To the spectator there is, through it all, no sense of fear. So intense, so tremendous is the spectacle that silly little human feelings find no place. All sensations are submerged in a sense of awe. Nor is there ever a suggestion of weariness when sense of time is lost. The guide's quiet warning that the hour approaches midnight is an unwelcome shock, but without protest, with only unexpressed regret the party turns away a few steps to the eastward, where motors—strange anomaly among these primeval forces—are waiting at the end of the new road that leads up the low southeastern bank of the crater and so back to the Volcano House. This vision of the earth-building forces at work is a picture so overpowering that it is burned into the memory for all time, can always be recalled in every detail as though one were standing on the brink of Halemaumau.

      Not always has Kilauea been what it is now, an enormous, quiescent crater with an active inner pit. It ha^ changed in character with the decades, sometimes with the seasons. Its own mountain has been submerged in the course of centuries by the masses of lava which have been piled against its western slopes by volcanic action from Mauna Loa. The vent through which its fires are forced is far below the surface of the sea. Around this vent have been built layer after layer of solid lava, each layer the result of a new eruption, but as the crater above the vent has been pushed higher and higher, the weight of the molten column has become proportionately greater and it has more and more tended to find the weak places in the surrounding walls and so to force an outlet lower down, sometimes many miles distant from the crater. This accounts for the innumerable lava flows which may be seen everywhere on the sides of Mauna Loa, and in this way, for centuries, Kilauea has built its mountain, spreading in bulk below and not overflowing at the top. How long this process will last, when the weak spots in the walls will have been made solid by new flows, thus forcing an overflow from the crater itself, is a problem to which there is no answer. The only violent eruption actually from the crater, of which there is authentic record or even legend, is that which destroyed the enemies of Kamehameha in 1789, and this came after the Volcano had been, apparently, completely inactive for a long period of years, the natural vent being temporarily sealed and therefore breaking out finally in an eruption similar in kind and as unexpected as the eruption of Vesuvius which destroyed Pompeii. Stones scattered all over the surrounding country, especially to the south, still bear witness to the violence of the outburst. Nothing of the kind has since occurred, and nothing similar can occur unless the molten lava in Halemaumau should solidify, thus closing the natural outlet for the forces beneath.

      The first white man to write of Kilauea was Mr. Ellis, who visited the crater in 1823, and what he saw was very different from what one sees to-day. Evidently the whole floor of the crater was active, and Mr. Ellis described it as follows: "The southwest and northern parts of the crater were one vast flood of liquid fire, in a state of terrific ebullition. . . . Fifty-one craters of varied form and size rose like so many conical islands from the surface of the burning lake. Twenty-two constantly emitted columns of grey smoke or pyramids of brilliant flame, and many of them at the same time vomited from their ignited mouths streams of fluid lava, which rolled in blazing torrents down their black, indented sides, into the boiling mass." Since that time changes have been rapid. In 1832 the floor fell, making the crater about 2,000 feet deep. In 1840 the whole crater was again in a state of violent action until the lava found its way through unknown channels underground, broke out eleven miles from the coast, and flowed into the sea, thus draining away the molten mass in Kilauea. In 1848 a lava dome was formed over the lake of fire, confined then within what seems its normal area—"a dome so high that it overtopped the walls of the crater. In 1868 all signs of activity disappeared, leaving only a great, fuming cavity, but three years later the fire lake was again full. In 1880 the whole floor of the crater rose in a fairly regular dome, which was surmounted by four lakes of fire, each about 1,000 feet in diameter. In 1886 all fire had again disappeared, but soon returned, forming other lakes and debris cones which were higher than the outer walls of the crater. There came a time, between 1900 and 1907, when the activity was very slight, and when people wondered whether Pele had died with the Monarchy, but during the last few years Kilauea has been continuously active. There is only one lake of fire, to be sure, which rises and falls in the most unexpected manner, sometimes draining away like wheat in the bottom of a funnel, but always bubbling back in a few days or hours, and always in a state of violent and fiery unrest. What changes future years will bring is one of the mysteries which make the Volcano so fascinating. Certainly the visitors' register at the Volcano House, which contains detailed accounts, often with drawings of occurrences seen by tourists and by scientists for many years back, will record as extraordinary events in the years to come.

      An observation station, under the auspices of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has recently been established at the edge of Halemaumau. Dr. F. A. Perrett, in charge of the station, sends most interesting weekly bulletins while he is at the Volcano to the Hawaiian Commercial Advertiser in Honolulu, and the series of these bulletins forms a valuable and practically unique scientific record of volcanic phenomena. The temperature of the lava has been found by experiment to be about 1,760º Fahrenheit. The daily, almost hourly, observations have finally proved much that was formerly only suspected about conditions and periods of activity. The floating islands in the lake have been studied, and it was found that they greatly affected the lava fountains. Even the most regular of these—called, of course, "Old Faithful"—became very uncertain in its action when an island moved into its vicinity, probably because the solid mass appreciably cooled and therefore thickened the fluid lava. All sorts of instruments are used in recording the various phases of action, and cameras fix any unusual visible manifestations. The reports to be published by the scientists in charge are expected to be illuminating in the facts which they will definitely establish.

      The new road into the crater, which follows the eastern bank and descends a long spur to within a hundred yards or so of Halemaumau, is familiarly called "the Road to Hell." Certainly the lake of molten lava fulfills as nearly as possible all standard descriptions of that tragic place. One is tempted to believe that Dante and Milton and the rest must have seen this or some similar volcano to make their details so realistic, so true to volcanic reality. From its beginning, too, the new road suggests the pleasant, sinuous charm of the broad way which does not lead to Heaven. Soon after leaving the hotel it plunges into low woods and winds among trees and clumps of ferns, giving every now and then wonderful glimpses of the crater and of the superb mountain beyond. Along its edges grow little ohelo bushes, spangled with their refreshing fruit, the taste of blueberries but the size of small grapes, canary yellow,