CONSTRUCTION OF THE CRATER.

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ledge some three or four hundred feet, with sloping sides; its floor being the burning lake with extended cones, described above. It was Mr. Ellis's opinion, that this fiery bottom was only a roof or diaphragm, of no great thickness, the upper and solidified portion of incandescent matter of the volcano; and that the liquid mass had quite recently sunk away from it, and found a subterranean outlet to the ocean; inasmuch as the great rising of the sea, previously spoken of, had occurred only three weeks before his visit to the volcano. The pent-up gases and fluid matter found vents through the numerous mammelons, on the upper flooring of the crater. The natives, too, believed that Pele had an underground exit from the mountain to the sea; and we know that heathen myths are often poetic renderings of natural facts. There were other symptoms of a great flow of lava about the same time, though unseen. At Kaimu, a village on the south-east coast, about two months previous to Mr. Ellis's arrival, a slight earthquake was felt; and after the tremulous motion, the earth cracked in a fissure, taking a direction from northby-east to south-by-west, and extending several miles. The fracture was perpendicular, and the chasm not more than two feet in width. Smoke and luminous vapour were emitted from it at the time of the occur

rence.

Of the craters on Mauna Hualalai, on the western side of Hawaii, the largest seen by Mr. Ellis was about one mile in circumference, and 400 feet deep. This was extinct at the time of his visit; but in 1800 a great eruption took place from it. On that occasion. the stream of lava which flowed from the volcano filled up a bay nearly twenty miles long, and formed a headland, which runs out three or four miles into the ocean.

Adjoining this pit was a much smaller one, from which sulphurous vapour ascended. Sixteen other craters were examined by his party on the same mountain.

On the next island, Maui, lying north-west of Hawaii, is the mountain Mauna Hale-a-ka-la, the house of the sun. A journey on horse of about six hours brings the traveller from the foot of the mountain to the brim of the largest crater in the world. Mr. Cheever, who visited the spot in 1850, says that as he and his party advanced to its edge, there suddenly opened upon them a pit, twenty-five or thirty miles in circumference, and two or three thousand feet deep. They counted in it about sixteen basins of old volcanoes-volcano within volcano. To the north-east and to the south-east two vast openings broke the lava walls; sluice-gates, out of which the molten lava and sand once poured down to the sea. On the sides of the volcanic cones grew large plants of the silver-sword (ensis argentea), looking, at that distance from the spectator, like little white pebbles. From the elevated position where the party stood, 10,000 feet above the sea level, the scene was magnificent. Four thousand feet below them was a vast expanse of cloud, like new-fallen snow, rolled in drifts and ridges, and which reflected the sunbeams upwards with dazzling splendour. When this sea of cloud broke, the island of Lanai was seen, lying directly west, over the mountain-tops of Lahaina, themselves having a height of 6000 feet. Trending off to the horizon, a hundred miles, lay the blue Pacific, not seeming far beneath them, but as if lifted up to their own plane of vision.* Rising out of the ocean was the dome of Mauna Loa,

* Edgar Poe gives a graphic description of the effect of the rising of the horizon round an aëronaut as he ascends from the earth in a balloon.

CRATER OF HALE-A-KA-LA.

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on Hawaii, its snow-capped summit flashing in the sun like a bank of alabaster. The clouds, and their shadows seen on other clouds far beneath, hovered over the blue deep, sometimes seeming to float in it like great icebergs. The extent covered by the vision on each of three sides of the mountain, was at least 200 miles.

The following account of a visit to the crater of Hale-a-ka-la made in 1865, occurs in a letter from Mrs. Mason, wife of the Archdeacon of Lahaina, Maui :—

Early next day we set off and had a lovely, though tiresome journey up to the summit of Hale-a-ka-la. As we went up we passed through the clouds, which we could see as thin mist all round. The rare air made Mr. M. feel sick and faint. It is a very peculiar sensation, a lightness of your head. When we got up I threw myself at the edge of the crater, and gazed my fill. I cannot give an idea of the sight, but it strikes one dumb with awe. You look down many thousand feet of steep declivity into this vast crater. In it are thirteen little craters, which only look like small mounds, but really are mountains of red lava: beneath you are seen clouds floating Sometimes it is clear, midway between you and the crater.

and then you see the clouds, floating in at the narrow neck of the crater, wreath themselves into fantastic shapes, and in five minutes fill it. In the distance, tower the Hualalai and the Mauna Kea of Hawaii. The crater looks as though one could walk through it easily, but it takes a week to ride round the mouth of it! The sun sank to rest in a bed of rosy clouds, and was a glorious sight, as was also the young moon rising. We sat up late round a large wood fire, and then slept in a tent; I did not suffer from the cold, though when I rose next day I was reminded of an English frosty morning. It was rather too cloudy to see the sun rise to advantage, but the sight of the vast crater, and those wonderful clouds sailing beneath our feet, amply repaid us for the exertion. We saw several bright meteors flashing, leaving a long trail of light, but they One thing struck us, the sense of are very common here.

side of the islands, and away from the mountains, little rain falls, and the sun is rarely obscured by cloud. For about nine months of the year the north-east trade-wind blows uninterruptedly; that north-east wind, so dreaded, so disliked, often so fatal, in our own Continent,-"neither good for man nor beast ;' but there a wind coming down from the temperate regions, and softened by passing over 2000 miles of ocean. During its prevalence, the leeward side of the islands basks in the bright sunny lapse of a long summer day;' inducing by the very beauty of the weather some degree of enervation in the human system, and a corresponding lotus-eating condition of mind. A more bracing air may be obtained by ascending the mountains. A mere ride from the capital up the Nuuanu Valley will give a cooler climate in an hour. Lahaina and some other leeward spots on the shore, possess the refreshing influence of a regular land and sea breeze. Above Lahaina, at an elevation of 3000 feet, is Mountain Retreat, with a temperature varying from 40° to 75°, and at Waimea, Hawaii, the average reading is 64°, the minimum being 48°. But though on the mountains, owing to the nature of the soil, the ground does not remain damp, rains are very frequent; and on the upland region of Kauai, at a height of 4000 feet, fires are required even in the month of July. The vast quantity of vapour absorbed into the atmosphere below, becomes condensed by the masses of the mountains, so that showers and mists are habitual with them, and the two loftiest peaks of Hawaii are rarely free from a belt of cloud. On the windward side of the islands the climate is rougher, and the rain-fall much more abundant. Whatever there is of disagreeable in the weather of the leeward districts, occurs at the time of the change, or rather interruption, of the Monsoon.

CLIMATE.-PRODUCTIONS.

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Then violent winds sweep through Honolulu, eddying in the streets, and, no doubt, do their work in purifying and dispelling stagnant air and unwholesome exhalations. Rains of a tropical character fall at this season, and also play their part in flushing streets and cleansing hidden corners. But the sybarites of the capital dislike the three months' interval of settled calmness, complain of it, and write little pasquinades on the weather in their newspapers. Sometimes, perhaps, this may not be without cause. One January lately, it rained at Lahaina continually for eight days, and the rain was accompanied by furious squalls from the eastward. A shower that lasts eight days may seem to indicate weather not so genial; but it occurs only at one season. After all, it is not much worse than the climate of Killarney, and is not to be compared with the rains of intertropical India, or to Venezuela, where, according to Humboldt, it rained incessantly for ten months.*

Of the natural productions of the islands, the indigenous Fauna is small. It consists of swine, dogs, rats, and a bat, which, forgetful of the decencies, flies by day. Of birds, domestic fowls appear to be native. In the mountainous region of Hawaii wild geese abound, but do not approach the shore. Snipes, plovers, and wild ducks are found on all the islands. There are only a few species of singing birds; Ellis mentions one with an exceedingly sweet note, resembling that of the English thrush. Some of the birds are remarkable for the beauty of their plumage; a small paroquet of glossy purple, the tropic bird, the feathers of which are used to form the kahili, a kind of fan carried near the king

* Ellis gives a meteorological table kept by the American missionaries in Oahu during one year. By this, rain fell on only forty days of the twelve months, and only forty-seven days besides were cloudy.

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