File:Memoirs of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum of Polynesian Ethnology and Natural History (1899) (16148514764).jpg

Title: Memoirs of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum of Polynesian Ethnology and Natural History
Identifier: acs9793.0002.004.umich.edu
Year: 1899 (1890s)
Authors: Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum
Subjects: Natural history; Ethnology
Publisher: Honolulu : Bishop Museum Press
Contributing Library: University of Michigan
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Michigan

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58 Kilauea and Mauna Loa. the viscid mass, but in quantities too small to run off far. Consequently it solidified on the margin, and thus formed the high rim which confined the lavas. Twice or at two points while we were there, the liquid flood broke through the rim, and flowed off in a broad, deep channel which continued its flow until we left the volcano. The view was a new one, and thrilling beyond description. In July, 1844, Mr. Coan saw the large lake overflow on every side, spreading over the whole southern end of the crater to the base of the black ledge and concealing the outlines of the raised rim. Two deep fissures extended under the ledge nearly encircling that part of the crater, and one of these was one hundred feet deep. The diagram given in Mr. Coan's letter 1844 (which has not been published in full) is here reproduced as ren- dering clearer the geography at the time. Dana considers the canals as mysteries, but the explanation he gives (CharaAeristics of Volcanoes, p. 77) only substitutes one mystery for another. We will continue the record and overtake his explanation. In June, 1846, Mr. Coan writes^^ 1846 that "the repeated overflowings had elevated the central parts of the crater four or five hundred feet since 1840, so that some points are now more elevated than the black ledge." We may note that the rise in the floor level was due, according to this practised observer, to the overflow of the lake which filled up the lower levels, including the canals. A month later Rev. Chester S. Lyman was at the crater and found it much as the last observer had reported. The canal was nearly filled by overflows, and in places nearly obliterated.^^ A rude sketch which Mr. Lyman left on the islands is here reproduced, and with this chart we may understand the explanation of the rapid rise of the bottom of Kilauea given by Mr. Lyman and adopted by Prof. Dana.^^ A crescent shaped ridge of rocks is shown on this sketch, and Lyman states that it was a continuous ridge more than a mile long, consisting of angular blocks of compact lava resembling the debris at the foot of a range of trap or basalt. From this he infers that the ridge once constituted a talus or accumulation of debris on the floor of the walls of the lower pit of 1840: ^^Amer. Jo urn. Science, 1850, x, 361. ^^Amer. Journ. Science, 1851, xii, 75. ^^Prof. Ivyman's plan, as given by Dana (Characteristics of Volcanoes, p. 79), is quite different from the plan he left on the spot and which is copied above. It must have been elaborated at New Haven from notes. C436)
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IflG. 46. DIAGRAM IN THI5 COAN I^ETTKR.

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