🧚 Volcanic Activity

In a little note-book in Hilo is a record which from time to time has been studied and copied frequently by visiting scientists.1 The missionary mother who put down the facts therein recorded never dreamed of being scientific.2 She simply kept a record.3 In 1832 Mrs. Sarah J. Lyman came to Hilo, where her husband founded the Hilo Boys’ Boarding School, a school, by the way, after which the great Hampton Institute of Virginia was patterned.4 On October 3, 1833, she was tossed around in her home in a way somewhat alarming.5 She opened her little note-book and wrote, “Two earthquakes, one of them heavy.”6

She had a little curiosity to see how frequently these earthquakes disturbed her home.7 Thus the record went on from month to month and year to year: “Earthquake, motion up and down,” “Heavy shake, stone walls down, cream shaken off the milk,” “4 A.M., all the family aroused,” “Jar and a noise like distant cannon,” “Tremendous shock, brace ourselves to stand up,” “Kai-mimiki” (sea shaken by an earthquake), “All motions combined, earth like the sea.”8 At one time the record ran: “Frequent jars, severe, so many I have ceased to count.”9

Interspersed through this concise and interesting story of earthquakes told in a few word pictures are many references to other volcanic phenomena.10 “Activity great in Mokuaweoweo.11 Mountain clear for several days, the smoke is marked, light brilliant at night, snow extensive on both mountains.”12

The year 1868 has been marked as the volcano year of Hawaiian history.13 Mr. F.14 S. Lyman, now living in Hilo, wrote a journal letter, which was quoted in full.15 He writes as follows about the earthquake:16

“March 27–31, 1868.17 A sudden eruption from Mauna Loa, no forewarning, a spray of red lava thrown high in the air, followed by a great stream of smoke rising up thousands of feet.18 In Kau we had quite a sprinkling of Pele’s hair, peculiar earthquakes—first hard shakes, then a swaying motion, as if the whole island were swaying back and forth and we with it.19 March 31—From about 10 P.M. to 2 A.M. the shaking was incessant.20 Thursday, April 2nd.21 We experienced the most fearful of earthquakes.22 The earth swayed north, south, east, west, round and round, up and down, and in every imaginable direction, everything crashing around us, trees thrashing as if torn by a mighty wind, impossible to stand.23 We had to sit on the ground, bracing with hands and feet, to keep from rolling over.”24

Mr. H. M. Whitney, editor of the Advertiser, says that “the number of shocks which occurred at Waiohinu from March 29 to April 10 was estimated at upwards of two thousand.25 The heaviest shock, that of April 2d, destroyed every church and nearly every dwelling in the whole district.26 This earthquake was felt very sensibly in Honolulu.27 Following the earthquake came a great tidal wave at Punaluu.28 It rolled in over the tops of coconut trees, probably sixty feet high at least, driving all floating rubbish inland about a quarter of a mile—taking with it, when it returned to the sea, houses, men, and women and everything movable.”29

Mr. Lyman wrote: “We could see the shore.30 All along the seashore from directly below us to Punaluu about three or four miles the sea was boiling and foaming furiously, all red.”31

Two remarkable eruptions accompanied this earthquake.32 The lava, starting from the slope of Mauna Loa, sank into some great channel but “burst forth with a heavy roar several miles farther down.33 The lava stream became a river of fire, flowing rapidly toward and around some farmhouses.34 The inmates had barely time to escape.35 The path by which they fled was covered with lava within ten minutes after they passed over it.36 Animals and even human beings perished.37 The number of deaths were between eighty and one hundred.38 This eruption flowed ten miles in two hours, and continued five days, destroying many thousands of acres of good lands.”39 The second remarkable eruption was nearer the crater Kilauea and has been known as “The Great Mud Flow of 1868.”40 It is in the region covered by the Pahala plantation.41

Mr. Lyman writes: “In the midst of the great earthquake we saw burst out from the top of the pali about a mile and a half north of us, what we supposed to be an immense river of molten lava (which afterward proved to be red earth), which rushed down in headlong course and across the plain below, apparently bursting from the ground and swallowing up everything in its way—trees, houses, cattle, horses, men, in an instant as it were.42 It went three miles in not more than three minutes’ time and then stopped.43 After the hard shaking had ceased we went right over to a hill with the children and our natives expecting every moment to be swallowed up by the lava from beneath, for it sounded as if it were surging and washing under our feet all the time.44 Outside of Punaluu we saw a long black point of lava slowly pushing out to sea.45 An island about four hundred feet high rose out of the sea at the south point.46 The lava river has extended the shore to this island one mile at least.”47

Mrs. Lyman wrote: “Jan. 30, 1875.48 Light exceedingly brilliant.49 Perpendicular column of smoke over 1,000 feet high on the summit crater spreading out at top like an expanding flower.”50 This august glow was described by members of the “Challenger” expedition as “a globular cloud perpetually reformed by condensation, having a brilliant orange glow at night as if a fire were raging in the distance.”51

This display from the summit of Mauna Loa continued about eighteen months.52

Isabella Bird Bishop, author of “Six Months in the Sandwich Islands,” visited this active crater in 1874, and wrote about the crater itself.53 “Nearly opposite us a fountain of pure yellow fire, unlike the gory gleam of Kilauea, was throwing up its glorious incandescence.54 The sunset gold was not purer than the living fire.55 The roar of this surging lava sea was a glorious sound, the roar of an ocean at dispeace mingled with the hollow murmur of surf echoing in sea caves, booming on, rising and falling like the thunder music of windward Hawaii.56 The area below us was over two miles long and a mile and a half wide with precipitous sides and a broad second shelf about 300 feet below the one we occupied with a fire fountain three-quarters of a mile away.57 On the way up the mountain there was a fearful internal throbbing and rumbling, rocks and masses of soil were dislodged, the earth reeled, then rocked again with such violence that I felt as if the horse and myself had gone over.”58

During these months of 1874–1875 there were magnificent exhibitions of clouds reflecting volcanic fires caused by the upburst of lava fountains.59

The summit crater of Mauna Loa is about 13,000 feet altitude.60 Snow has frequently covered the top of the mountain, lying in deep banks around the edge of the crater.61 The cold has acted quickly upon the lake of fire, congealing a large part of the surface into a hard floor of lava.62 Gases, steam, and smoke lift this floor and break through it with great violence, escaping from the melted lava in pillars of cloud against which the fires beneath mirror themselves in glorious displays of color.63 These outbursts were frequently called eruptions.64 The modern name is more correct.65 They are “glows,” reflecting wonderful fires beneath.66

Mrs. Lyman mentions another eruption from the summit of Mauna Loa.67 “1877.68 Feb. 14.69 Eruption seen on the mountain.70 Ten days extinct then broke out lower down the mountain and reached the sea in a few days, near Kaawaloa, Kealakekua Bay.”71