CONSTRUCTION OF THE CRATER.

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ledge some three or four hundred feet, with sloping sides; its floor being the burning lake with extended cones, described above. It was Mr. Ellis's opinion, that this fiery bottom was only a roof or diaphragm, of no great thickness, the upper and solidified portion of incandescent matter of the volcano; and that the liquid mass had quite recently sunk away from it, and found a subterranean outlet to the ocean; inasmuch as the great rising of the sea, previously spoken of, had occurred only three weeks before his visit to the volcano. The pent-up gases and fluid matter found vents through the numerous mammelons, on the upper flooring of the crater. The natives, too, believed that Pele had an underground exit from the mountain to the sea; and we know that heathen myths are often poetic renderings of natural facts. There were other symptoms of a great flow of lava about the same time, though unseen. At Kaimu, a village on the south-east coast, about two months previous to Mr. Ellis's arrival, a slight earthquake was felt; and after the tremulous motion, the earth cracked in a fissure, taking a direction from northby-east to south-by-west, and extending several miles. The fracture was perpendicular, and the chasm not more than two feet in width. Smoke and luminous vapour were emitted from it at the time of the occur

rence.

Of the craters on Mauna Hualalai, on the western side of Hawaii, the largest seen by Mr. Ellis was about one mile in circumference, and 400 feet deep. This was extinct at the time of his visit; but in 1800 a great eruption took place from it. On that occasion the stream of lava which flowed from the volcano filled up a bay nearly twenty miles long, and formed a headland, which runs out three or four miles into the ocean.

Adjoining this pit was a much smaller one, from which sulphurous vapour ascended. Sixteen other craters were examined by his party on the same mountain.

On the next island, Maui, lying north-west of Hawaii, is the mountain Mauna Hale-a-ka-la, the house of the sun.' A journey on horse of about six hours brings the traveller from the foot of the mountain to the brim of the largest crater in the world. Mr. Cheever, who visited the spot in 1850, says that as he and his party advanced to its edge, there suddenly opened upon them a pit, twenty-five or thirty miles in circumference, and two or three thousand feet deep. They counted in it about sixteen basins of old volcanoes-volcano within volcano. To the north-east and to the south-east two vast openings broke the lava walls; sluice-gates, out of which the molten lava and sand once poured down to the sea. On the sides of the volcanic cones grew large plants of the silver-sword (ensis argentea), looking, at that distance from the spectator, like little white pebbles. From the elevated position where the party stood, 10,000 feet above the sea level, the scene was magnificent. Four thousand feet below them was a vast. expanse of cloud, like new-fallen snow, rolled in drifts and ridges, and which reflected the sunbeams upwards with dazzling splendour. When this sea of cloud broke, the island of Lanai was seen, lying directly west, over the mountain-tops of Lahaina, themselves having a height of 6000 feet. Trending off to the horizon, a hundred miles, lay the blue Pacific, not seeming far beneath them, but as if lifted up to their own plane of vision.* Rising out of the ocean was the dome of Mauna Loa,

* Edgar Poe gives a graphic description of the effect of the rising of the horizon round an aëronaut as he ascends from the earth in a balloon.

CRATER OF HALE-A-KA-LA.

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on Hawaii, its snow-capped summit flashing in the sun like a bank of alabaster. The clouds, and their shadows seen on other clouds far beneath, hovered over the blue deep, sometimes seeming to float in it like great icebergs. The extent covered by the vision on each of three sides of the mountain, was at least 200 miles.

The following account of a visit to the crater of Hale-a-ka-la made in 1865, occurs in a letter from Mrs. Mason, wife of the Archdeacon of Lahaina, Maui :

Early next day we set off and had a lovely, though tiresome journey up to the summit of Hale-a-ka-la. As we went up we passed through the clouds, which we could see as thin mist all round. The rare air made Mr. M. feel sick and faint. It is a very peculiar sensation, a lightness of your head. When we got up I threw myself at the edge of the crater, and gazed my fill. I cannot give an idea of the sight, but it strikes one dumb with awe. You look down many thousand feet of steep declivity into this vast crater. In it are thirteen little

craters, which only look like small mounds, but really are mountains of red lava: beneath you are seen clouds floating midway between you and the crater. Sometimes it is clear, and then you see the clouds, floating in at the narrow neck of the crater, wreath themselves into fantastic shapes, and in five minutes fill it. In the distance, tower the Hualalai and the Mauna Kea of Hawaii. The crater looks as though one could walk through it easily, but it takes a week to ride round the mouth of it! The sun sank to rest in a bed of rosy clouds, and was a glorious sight, as was also the young moon rising. We sat up late round a large wood fire, and then slept in a tent; I did not suffer from the cold, though when I rose next day I was reminded of an English frosty morning. It was rather too cloudy to see the sun rise to advantage, but the sight of the vast crater, and those wonderful clouds sailing beneath our feet, amply repaid us for the exertion. We saw several bright meteors flashing, leaving a long trail of light, but they are very common here. One thing struck us, the sense of

stillness. One could feel the silence. Not a sound or sign of life, vegetable or animal, in that vast crater.

From the foregoing accounts of the volcanic condition of the islands, it is possible that some readers, who may have entertained an idea of visiting them, may infer that there is a degree of general instability about the country, and a consequent want of permanence in its institutions. The supposition is a mistaken one; the Hawaiian Islands and their institutions are probably as permanent as other portions of the globe which are removed a little farther from the central fires. And with regard to persons who are not certain about the strength of their nerves, it is by no means incumbent on them to make the actual descent into the crater of Kilauea.*

* From experiments instituted by Arago, Marcet, and others, and lately by observations made in sinking a deep mine at Dukinfield, in which a depth of 2100 feet has been attained, it is well ascertained that a gradually increasing temperature attends the descent from the surface of the earth, and bears at different depths ascertainable ratios to the depression; any irregularities being dependent, apparently, on the different strata pierced, their conducting power for heat, &c. The rate of increase varies from about 1 degree in 50 feet to 1 degree in 100 feet. On this scale, boiling point of water would be reached at a depth of two and a half miles; and at forty miles beneath the earth's surface the deduced temperature would be 3000 degrees, at which heat every metal and every rock would be in a state of fusion. Mr. W. Fairbairn, LL.D., read an interesting paper upon the thermometrical experiments in the Dukinfield mine, at the Manchester Literary and Philosophic Society, in April 1861.

CHAPTER III.

CLIMATE-PRODUCTIONS-COMMERCE.

THOUGH

HOUGH situated within the tropics, the Hawaiian Islands enjoy a propitious climate; one belonging rather to the temperate than to the torrid zone. There is scarcely a place on the globe which has a temperature so equable as that of Honolulu, one of more desirable register, or where the elements are kindlier mixed. So invisible is the subject of weather to the islanders, that Mr. Jarvis remarks their language has no word to express the general idea. The diurnal range of the thermometer in Honolulu, is twelve degrees. During twelve years the extremes of temperature in shade were 90°, and 53°; the entire range during that long period not exceeding 37°. In Canada, near Montreal, about the beginning of March of the year 1861, a variation of 80° occurred in forty-eight hours. The mean temperature of the capital of the islands is about 75°. At Lahaina the thermometrical range in ten years was 32°; viz., from 54° to 86°; and during no day in that period did the variation exceed 19°. What may be called the summer and winter seasons correspond pretty nearly with our own-June being the warmest month, January the coldest. Honolulu, Lahaina, and some other places on the shores, are, from their genial climate, eminently serviceable to invalids suffering from pulmonary complaints. On the leeward