It
was in a pleasant pastoral region, supposed to be at rest for ever,
at the top of a grass-covered plateau sprinkled with native and
foreign houses, and rich in herds of cattle. Four huge fountains
boiled up with terrific fury, throwing crimson lava, and rocks
weighing many tons, to a height of from 500 to 1000 feet. Mr.
Whitney, of Honolulu, who was near the spot, says:--"From these
great fountains to the sea flowed a rapid stream of red lava,
rolling, rushing, and tumbling, like a swollen river, bearing along
in its current large rocks that made the lava foam as it dashed down
the precipice and through the valley into the sea, surging and
roaring throughout its length like a cataract, with a power and fury
perfectly indescribable. It was nothing else than a RIVER OF FIRE
from 200 to 800 feet wide and twenty deep, with a SPEED VARYING FROM
TEN TO TWENTY-FIVE MILES AN HOUR!" This same intelligent observer
noticed as a peculiarity of the spouting that the lava was ejected
by a ROTARY MOTION, and in the air both lava and stones always
rotated TOWARDS THE SOUTH. At Kilauea I noticed that the lava was
ejected in a southerly direction. From the scene of these fire
fountains, whose united length was about a mile, the river in its
rush to the sea divided itself into four streams, between which it
shut up men and beasts.
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