Once from
their highest mountain a pillar of fire 200 feet in diameter lifted
itself for three weeks 1000 feet into the air, making night day, for
a hundred miles round, and leaving as its monument a cone a mile in
circumference. We see a clothed and finished earth; they see the
building of an island, layer on layer, hill on hill, the naked and
deformed product of the melting, forging, and welding, which go on
perpetually in the crater of Kilauea.
I could fill many sheets with what I have heard, but must content
myself with telling you very little. In 1855 the fourth recorded
eruption of Mauna Loa occurred. The lava flowed directly Hilo-
wards, and for several months, spreading through the dense forests
which belt the mountain, crept slowly shorewards, threatening this
beautiful portion of Hawaii with the fate of the Cities of the
Plain. Mr. C. made several visits to the eruption, and on each
return the simple people asked him how much longer it would last.
For five months they watched the inundation, which came a little
nearer every day. "Should they fly or not? Would their beautiful
homes become a waste of jagged lava and black sand, like the
neighbouring district of Puna, once as fair as Hilo?" Such
questions suggested themselves as they nightly watched the nearing
glare, till the fiery waves met with obstacles which piled them up
in hillocks, eight miles from Hilo, and the suspense was over.
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