"
This was the most extensive flow of recent years, and its progress from
the interior plain through the dense forests above Hilo and out on to
the open levels close to the town was startling and menacing enough.
Through the woods especially it was a turbulent, seething mass that
hurled down mammoth trees, and licked up streams of water, and day and
night kept up an unintermitting cannonade of explosions. The steam
and imprisoned gases would burst the congealing surface with loud
detonations that could be heard for many miles. It was not an infrequent
thing for parties to camp out close to the flow over night. Ordinarily a
lava-flow moves sluggishly and congeals rapidly, so that what seems
like hardihood in the narrating is in reality calm judgment, for it is
perfectly safe to be in the close vicinity of a lava-stream, and even to
walk on its surface as soon as one would be inclined to walk on cooling
iron in a foundry. This notable flow finally ceased within half a mile
of Hilo, where its black form is a perpetual reminder of a marvellous
deliverance from destruction.
KILAUEA IN 1840
Kilauea seems never, in historic times, to have filled and overflowed
its vast crater. To do so would need an almost inconceivable volume of
liquid rock material. But it approached this culmination in 1840, when
it became, through its whole extent, a raging sea of fire. The boiling
lava rose in the mighty mountain-cup to a height of from 500 to
600 feet.
Pages:
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363