Some years
ago, when the enormous quantity of thirty-six inches of rain fell in
one week, the degradation of both exterior and interior was
something incredible, and the same process is being carried on
slowly or rapidly at all times. The Punchbowl, immediately behind
Honolulu, is a crater of the same kind, but of yet more brilliant
colouring: so red is it indeed, that one might suppose that its
fires had but just died out. In 1786 an observer noted it as being
composed of high peaks; but atmospheric influences have reduced it
to the appearance of a single wasting tufa cone, similar to those
which stud the northern slopes of Mauna Kea. There are a number of
shore craters on the island, and six groups of tufa cones, but from
the disintegration of the lava, and the great depth of the soil in
many places, it is supposed that volcanic action ceased earlier than
on Maui or Hawaii. The shores are mostly fringed with coral reefs,
often half a mile in width, composed of cemented coral fragments,
shells, sand, and a growing species of zoophyte. The ancient reefs
are elevated thirty, forty, and even 100 feet in some places,
forming barriers which have changed lagoons into solid ground.
Honolulu was a bay or lagoon, protected from the sea by a coral reef
a mile wide; but the elevation of this reef twenty-five feet has
furnished a site for the capital, by converting the bay into a low
but beautifully situated plain.
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