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The Honolulu republican. [volume] (Honolulu, T.H.) 1900-1902, June 16, 1901, Part II, Image 10

Image and text provided by University of Hawaii at Manoa; Honolulu, HI

Persistent link: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85047165/1901-06-16/ed-1/seq-10/

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LA loRMVTIOX ALONG EAST WALL OF HALEMAUMAU. (Photo by Davy, Honolulu.)
to get far enough away to lose the j scientist on the mighty heat energy
,... rtf ! Mirhtv cntnrnpt. t bplow that sends this forth. Of the
of Point Sublime and looking across j
that mighty chasm, a distance ot xuuy
fifteen miles, with a great gorge below
oxtendlng down, down until It seems
as though it was going right Into the
bowels of the earth. I could not realize
that the depth of that chasm was
more than a mile and a quarter, and
that the distance across to the other
bank, would, on the level plain, be
nearly 3 hours' ride on horseback. But
as one comes to the point a second
Umo. or lingers there, the greatness
and magnitude and sublimity of the
sight gradually unfolds Itself until at
last man realises how puny and insignificant
in the world's creation he 13,
and how mighty and powerful are the
works of nature. It becomes
In cazlni: at this sight the dis
tant crest of the outer rim one does1
not at first realise the grandeur of
what he sees. It Is only by a trip
down Into the crater that one can be
To say that Kilanea is not active
now is to say that Niagara Falls are
Zil ..4.ri,nr,. that not active, or the osemlte wua ; are
.-,, bofol mn In foot nounds or foot tons of power
JT-.. .i ... r,r ih ! ). ronmitxt and coos to waste. I not active. If some creature that uvea
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rado the groatest chasm in all the reckoned on the plain of serviceability
known world. Standing on the rock to man.
gin to grasp the awfulness of this for-1 no doubt say that the falls are no'
matlve section of the world. To the
scientist a visit to Kilauea is of even
greater Interest than It Is to the tourist
He can see the forces of nature
at work as they must have been In the
beginning of the world, thousands and
tens of thousands of years ago.
Commencing to the northwest, in
the creation of the Hawaiiaa Islands,
the molten mass under the sea threw
up a chain of volcanos, which, in time
cooled, and the making of earth aad
soil ob the black and charred rock be
ta the period when great
glaciers vent sweeping down the lakes
and made the plunge over Niagara and
helped to cat out the gorge in the
rocks, could visit the falls now, and
compare them with what they were
In the period, he would
active now. And yet this would be
no more ridiculous than the expressions
made by some of the old residents
of Hawaii who say that Kilauea
Is not active now. From the pit of
TTalpmanmau there uoars forth every
hoars millions and millions
of cubic feet of smoke and gases,
fully equal in cubit volume to the
amount of water whick pours over
Niagara Falls every twenty-four hoars,
so that the absurdity of the statement
that Kilauea Is not active can
level.
Tradition has it tnat a party of visitors
were out on the floor of the crater
when this chasm was formed, it being
the custom, in those days, to visit
the crater at night, as the sight was
more magnificent after dark. Little
streams of lava poured over the floor,
but the surface cooled and hardened
so quickly that one on foot could cross
over a fresh stream of lava within a
vers few minutes after it had passed
along. Of course one could not stand
on it, for it would burn shoes, and
there was great danger in crossing it,
for often the surface woud give under
the feet like thin ice will do. But.
strange to say, no one was ever lost
in these night excursions. This party
that were cut off by the formation of
the chasm were so long absent from
the hotel that a searching party
was sent out to see what had happen
ed, and the searchers discovered them
on the brink of the chasm, unable to
get across. The rescuers returned to
the hotel, where planks were secured,
and these were laid across the chasm
so that the imprisoned visitors could
get over.
This chasm is now crossed by a
bridge sufticiently strong to bear up a
horse. Continuing on toward Hale
maumau, tnere is a graauai asceni.
as the building up process, which has
been going on through the ages, is
gradually, but none the less certainly,
building up a small mountain within
the main crater. Here and there will
be seen steam which comes from the
bowels of the earth, pouring out of
little cracks in the lava. And what
fantastic pranks and freaks the lava
played when It was pouring over the
floor of the crater. Here it has built
un a mound which has cracked and
checked in all manner of fantastic figures
as It cooled. Another mound of
lava takes on the form of an Indian
wickiup, while still another looks like
a creat roll of black molasses candy.
As you follow on over the trail you
notice by the sound that here and
there you are passing over a small
cave. Lava, when In the molten condition,
cools very quickly on the surface,
while that underneath will still
be at white heat. Inis cooling process
of the surface causes gases to rorm
underneath, which oftlmes results In
an explosion, throwing the surface
lava Into all sorts of shapes. At other
times the molten lava finally breaKs
away at some weak point In the crust
and goes traveling onward, leaving the
crust standing like an arch with a
beneath. Sometimes Tery considerable
caves will be formed In this way.
but generally the cavity Is only a small
one. not over two to four ieei m aepm
anH th width of the lava stream.
which may be thirty or may be a
rtriW! fpt
Whlle speaking of the flow of lava.
it may be well to say taat lava aoes
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Part II Part II.
THE HONOLULU
Paes 9,to 16. REPUBLICAN. Paes 9 to 16.
VOLUME m. NO. 317. HONOLULU, H. T., SUNDAY, JUNE 16, 1901. PSICE PIVE CENTS
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Kilauea, Greatest Active Volcano in the World
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UIAhM IX CRATER AND BRIDGE. (Photo by Williams, Honolulu.)
may justly claim having
the greatest tourist attraction in
Ui 'World. Thy Hawaiian Islands
themselves, with their perpetual
summer, their balmy sea breezes,
their rich tropical foliage and their
broad bathing beaches, the finest in
the world, are one of nature's greatest
attraction for the traveler and the
sight seer. But added to all these is
the wonderful living Volcano of Kilauea.
the most active volcano in the
world. The average tourist visiting
makes the mistake of trying to
pee the volcano and kindred attractions
all In a few hours. Instead of
trying to do that, several days should
be. spent at Kilauea in order to fully
comprehend the grandeur of the place.
This is so of every ono of the world's
greatest wonders. I know that when I
first visited Niagara Falls, as a youth.
1 was very much disappointed. I had
pictured them in my mind, from de
scriptions and pictures in the old
school geographies, ns a perfect lake
of water pouring ovor a precipice thousands
Instead of hundreds of feet high.
But the more I saw of the fulls tne
more their grandeur and magnitude
aujteftled to me. The awful force of
that great bodv of water rushing on
aw the rapid finally to take the
fearful plunge, held me in perfect
1 wanted to linger in sight
of them b the and did not want ,
spiring, and even in the mind of the
atheist there cannot but arise thoughts
of a deity of some kind that had a
hand in the making of all this.
So one has this same feeling when
standing on the brink of Kilauea. As
the stage draws up to the Volcano
House and the traveler looks out over
the great crater to the pit of everlasting
fire there Is a sense of disappointment.
The Volcano is not a mountain
psak. It is not an opening in the
summit of a high and mighty peak, as
we have been taught to regard volcanoes
from our childhood, but a great
caldron of burnt and blackened and
charred lava, near the center of which
Is still another deep depression which
goes down into the seething mass of
molten lava in the bowels of the earth.
Arising from this pit are great volumes
of smoke and gases and sulphur
fumes that everlastingly pour forth
into the air. I have watched them on
a still morning and seen them go curling
upward, up, and up, and up, until
gauged by the nearby summit of Mau-na
Loa the column of mtJcp ami i??5
must have reached a height of from
five to seven thousand feet.
What a field for speculation in the
mighty forces at work in the bowels
of the earth to send forth every day,
every hour, every minute this continuous
stream of smoke and gas. And
what a field for speculation by tne
gan. As one eruption cooled another
began farther on, until, last of all,
stands the mountain of Mauna Loa,
on the side of which Kilauea is situated.
Explosions have been felt at
sea in recent years to the south and
east of Kilauea, and there are those
who believe that some day another
island will be added to the Hawaiian
group.
But to return to Kilauea as one of
the world's greatest wonders. To
many of the old-time residents of Hawaii
who have seen this volcano when
it was a molten mass of lava it is not
active now. I had several old-timers
say to me before my visit: "Oh, you
won't see much there now; the volcano
is not active." To these people
the volcano may seem to be not active
now, by comparison with what it has
been at various periods in the last
thirty years, but as a matter of fact
it is the most active volcano in the
world. Neither Vesuvius nor the so-called
active volcanos of Mexico, nor
those of Java and Sumatra and Japan
Kilauea. At times they are more active
than Kilauea is just now, but at
no time do any of them afford the
grand and weird sight afforded by Kilauea
when the lava in the inner lake
boils to the surface and begins spreading
itself over the floor of the main
crater.
readily be appreciated. There Is
Ing else like it In all the world, and I
It is well worth a journey around the
world to see. j
For the information of those who
have never seen this wonderful fireplt
of the world it Is well to explain that
Kilauea consists of two pita or craters.
The crater proper, which is nearly two
miles long by one mile and one-half in
width, and the inner crater, called
Halemaumau, which means in English,
House of Eternal Fire. The main crater
is from four hundred to six hundred
feet below the surrounding
bluffs, while no one knows the deptn
of Halemaumau, but it is generally
estimated to be at present about nine
hundred feet- This Inner crater Is s
( probably S00 feet across the longest
way by 600 the shortest, being eliptical ,
I in formation In periods of great act-)
i Ivity Halemaumau fills with lava to '
j the brim, sometimes pouring over on j
S91 Halemaumau was a molten lake j
like some giant cauldron, boiling and
boiling. Gradually the molten mass
would rise higher and higher,
tering and sputtering until a break in
the rim would be made, and the molt-'
en lava would go pouring out over the
floor of the main crater. Then relief
from the pent-up forces below would J
be afforded and after a time there
would be a sinking of the level of the l
boiling mass to a considerable
tance below the rim.
This inner crater has several times
shifted its position, the present crater
being further to the south and east
than that of 1S91, which filled up and
gave way to the present crater.
The trip over the bed of the main
crater to Halemaumau is one of the
most weird that can be found in the
world. Leaving the hotel, either on
foot or horseback, you follow a well
kept trail down the sides of the rim to
the floor of the crater, where you set
out over a lava bed of recent formation,
so recent that even the fern life,
which is the most primitive of plant
life known, and which will grow long
before disintegration of the lava takes
place, has not been able to take root-One
does not travel far after reaching
this lava floor until coming to the
great chasm, as It is called, a break
in the noor made some time in the
eighties. This chasm extends clear
c;ross the crater from one rim to the
other. It was made one night when
lava was pouring over the bed of the
crater in little streams. Suuuenly there
was a great quaking and the hot lava
just underneath Ue surface, which
was trying to force itself along from
under one of tne little hills that had
been piled up. like those showr.in the
illustration, broke away, the &or of
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FANTASTIC MOUND OF LAVA. (Photo by Williams, Honolulu.)
direction goes on in that direction to
the end. It traveis up hill as well as
down dale. The lava flows on the
Island of Hawaii show where the lava
has run down into and across a small
valley and up the opposlteside like
some monster reptile seeking whom it
might devour.
As you near the inner crater of Kilauea
the steam cracks uecome more
numerous, and presently can be seen
the sulphur beds where the old crater
was located, and the hot cracks, or
heat cracks, as they are called, which
are constantly pouring forth an intense
heat Standing off at a distance
and looking over the tops of these
cracks the heat waves resemble those
seen pouring forth from the furnaces
of an ore smelter, where the greatest
artificial heat known to man is generated.
On the edges of these heat cracks,
which are several hundred feet from
of Halemaumau. the lava Is.
tTia trofor wqc rtvn ncuniloe o-3. Srf fltT SO it... nx. j l it,n
'finf lowest
ments. These cracKs aTe in no piace
more than one foot wide, being lor
burning, and the entire stick was
aflame from one end to the other in
fifty-four seconds. This will give one
these cracks.
Near the edge of Halemaumau are
several very interesting caverns or hot
caves. It is dangcrousNvisIting them,
as the smoke and sulphur fumes from
the crater are likely to drop over the
entrance to the caverns and envelop
you. I had a frightful experience in
my attempting to visit them. The
wind was light and shifting, the smoke
going straight up for considerable periods
and then dropping over the edge
of the crater like a great cloud.
Watching an opportunity. I made a
dash for the hot cave with the guide,
and going down the ladder had just
secured some fine specimens of lava
stalactites, when, on looking up, I
saw that the smoke was sweeping
down over us. I hastily clambered
out, only to be caught in a denso
sufferer from asthma at various times
for several years past, the reader can
.. t. .... nm,it n tan tnrhps i rpnilllv Jmncinp hOW the SUlDhur fumCS
caving in, so that ono does not daro
go too close to It. A stono thrown
into the crater brings back no sound.
some Idea of the heat pouring from j and the volume of smoke Is so great at
all times that It is Impossible) to say
whether the bottom, if it has a bottom,
is a mass of molten lava, or what it Is.
Presumably, from the vast amount of
smoke and gases constantly arising,
Halemaumau is an opening foritho
great world fires raging bonoath. The
heat around the crater is greater now
than it was two years ago, and to tho
mind of many old-timers in tho Islands
another period of intense activity on
the part of Kilauea Is not far distant.
I spoke of the outer rim of tho
main crater as being from four hundred
and fifty to six hundred fot
above the floor of the crater. That
refers to the first rim, as back from
that are two other distinct bluffs or
walls clearly Indicating that
some time in the -distant- pasttho
crater of
n r mi in r it
cracks almost a3 Interesting to the
visitor as the crater itsolf. Those
steam cracks are fully six hundred
mt uiuai. imit .luuui. o.- . ... i . o .... t i. . , .,- , flnnr nf tha mnln prnfor
in width. Leaning over one or tnem i aneciea me. 1 ineu iu iuu unj. um i k """ " - - --
to get a look down the hot b.ast could only go a short distance, as my and flfteon hundred foot above tho
strikes you in the face with such breathing apparatus seemed shut up. j bottom of Halemaumau. Along this
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LOOKING INTO HALEMAUMAU FORM NORTH WALL. (Photo b Williams Hnlulu.
force that for a moment it seems that To my great relief the wind sprang up rim these steam cracks follow three
but driving the fumes away. In a distinct crevices or clefts In the rock,
itnst have singed your face, anew,
of couSeltif notl tot enough for that few minutes I began to struggle for At times Immense volumes of steam
afte? reaching that high into the alr.Ureath. worse than ever I had pour forth from these cwks. jhUo
from' serious attack of again the volume is small. At all
In looking at the waves of heat gled in the most
?dS.aVhld, pours from these asthma, and for a whlle thought that .fflttoj;
cracks it eems that surely sucn in-, sureiy i woum cnouc 10 umw. ak ..- w. D. .
tpnu heat must take on the appear- eluded then and there that people who , them. From two or reo th. steam
ance of flame when darkness settles
over the crater, but it does not. But
the flame Is not far distant- A suck.
such as one would use as a staff In
mountain climbing, stuck Into one of
these cracks hall Its length and held
there a few minutes will be taken out
all charred and burning at the lower
end. On one of my visits to these heat
cracks I dropped an ohla stick about
five feet long, an inch and a half thick
at the heavy end by three-quarters of
an inch thick at the small end. into
what seemed to be the hottest of these
heat cracks, the stick lodging on a
cleft about 12 feet from the surface.
wanted to visit the not caves ior ava , wmes imuius iww, u.U(, ,: ,,
stalactites might do so. I did not want I like the exhaust from a small boiler,
any more specimens. I had managed, j and can be heard some little distance
however, to hold onto two on three from the cracks. Some of these cracks
small specimens In my haste to get are large enough to hurl a bullock
aar f into, without knowing how far down
But the sight of the brink of Hale- j he would go, while others are small
maumau Is the grandest of alL On one vents no larger than a man's body,
of my trips the smoke would pour np Again some of these steam cracks
In wonderful volumes for a while and . stretch away for a length of several
then seem to die down, leaving the hundred feet, being broken here and
side walls exposed down to a depth , there by rocks holding together across
of five hundred or six hundred) feet. them.
On the sides of the walls could be seen On the side of one of the outer rims
great spots of -virgin sulphur, ana nere menuonea. waicu must mai. ""-and
there streaks of It Is the walls was tho original outer wait of Kilauea.
UrrlSrfW Tellow paintings. The
beantIfnJ
I A laS fio ouc?SeTin a gvenhong it would take the stick to be north edge of the crater Is constantly j
(Continued on 16th Page)
jf Tl I in I ii'Ti" irir

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