It was
composed of solid matters ejected with the lava, and it continued
to glow like a furnace, notwithstanding its exposure to the air. The
current of lava on this occasion flowed to a distance of thirty-five
miles, burning its way through the forests, and filling the air with
smoke and flames from the ignited timber. The glare from the glowing
lava and the burning trees together was discernible by night at a
distance of 200 miles from the island.
THE LAVA FLOW OF 1880
A succeeding great lava flow was that which began on November 6, 1880.
Mr. David Hitchcock, who was camping on Mauna Kea at the time of this
outbreak, saw a spectacle that few human eyes have ever beheld. "We
stood," writes he, "on the very edge of that flowing river of rock. Oh,
what a sight it was! Not twenty feet from us was this immense bed of
rock slowly moving forward with irresistible force, bearing on its
surface huge rocks and immense boulders of tons' weight as water would
carry a toy-boat. The whole front edge was one bright red mass of solid
rock incessantly breaking off from the towering mass and rolling down
to the foot of it, to be again covered by another avalanche of white-hot
rocks and sand. The whole mass at its front edge was from twelve to
thirty feet in height. Along the entire line of its advance it was
one crash of rolling, sliding, tumbling red-hot rock. We could hear no
explosions while we were near the flow, only a tremendous roaring like
ten thousand blast furnaces all at work at once.
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