Statewide County HI Archives News.....Wiki Mo'olelo  Part 9 . November 4, 2008
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Darlene E. Kelley donkeyskid@msn.com November 16, 2008, 8:48 am

Keepers Of The Culture, A Study In Time Of The Hawaiian Islands November 4, 2008

Contributed for use in
USGenWeb Archives
by Darlene E. Kelley
donkeyskid@msn.com
November 4, 2008

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Historical Collections of Hawai'i
Keepers of the Culture
A Study in Time, of the Hawai'ian Islands
Wiki Mo'olelo - Part 9
by Darlene E. Kelley

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Wiki Mo'olelo

Part 9.

Hawai'ian Volcanos

Each island has its extinct craters from which extend the limited ranges
of mountains and plains which make the island surface. These large
craters are from a few hundred to over thirteen thousand feet in
altitude. They seem to have had mighty explosions after they had been
built into mountains, and one side of the crater has usually been blown
out or has slid down into the ocean, leaving very high, steep side walls
around irregularly shaped valleys opening toward the sea

In these craters and between them and the sea are many small craters
which mark the most recent eruptions on the various islands. There are
no legends of the origin of any of these large craters, whether extinct
or active. There are very interesting stories connected with many of
them, and there are legends of of the origin of some of the small
extinct craters which lie at the bases of the mountain ranges. These
usally are ascribed to the fire-goddess Pele, who came to the Hawai'ian
group ages after the islands were built, and who only succeeded in
starting eruptions of no great importance
until she found her present home in the volcano Kilauea. These small
extenct craters marked the progress of Pele's journey through the
islands.

The large mountains of all the islands, except Hawai'i, have no hot
springs and no outlets for steam or hot air which would indicate any
remnent of living fire still abiding in them. Nor are there any very
noticable earthquake shocks in these other islands, even at the time
when the island Hawai'i is pouring floods of lava down its mountain
sides and is shaking its inhabitants with great force.

Open volcanic activity is confined to the mountains of Hawai'i. The
mountains of Mau'i, especially Hale-a-ka-la, are called active because
of its histroic eruptions and signs of hidden fire.

The extinct craters are very interesting. They have their broken-down
side wall, through which the last great effort of volcanic life was
poured out. They also have crater cones and sometimes lava flows of
small extent on the floor left by the great eruption. These were the
picturesque last throbs of life as a volcano died. Ocassional spasmodic
efforts were made in both earthquake and lava flow until the fire cooled
in the submarine chambers.

From the summits of all these mountains, peculiarly fine cloud views can
be enoyed. There is not only the gathering of cloud masses rolling
beneath the lover of the sublime,--- this can be seen on all the large
mountains of the world,-- but here in Hawai'ian Islands the march of
cloud armies sweeping over an ocean and spreading in ceaseless motion
for miles over the lowlands receives an added element of majesty and awe
when tossing, whirling cloud mountains roll into the extinct craters and
slowly fill the bowl of the gods from rim to rim as the morning sun
delicately touches the crater edges above the clouds with all colors of
the dawn.

Here and there in the decaying volcanic ash and disintegrating lava can
sometimes be found beautiful, small, star-rayed zeolite, or the pale
green olivine, or course black augite crystals
These are of no value, save as they show some of the forms taken by
cooling lava, and are of intrest chiefly to the scientist.

On the island Hawai'i are three great mountains from 8,200 to 13,600
feet above the ocean, which smashes its mighty tides and surf waves
against the coast below. One of these, Mauna Kea 
( White Mountain ), is an extinct volcano with a lake of water in its
crater. Hualalai is dormant, although from it thee was a great eruption
a little over a hundred years ago, and even now possibilities of
activity are talked about by those who cultivate sugar-cane and coffee
on its lower slopes. Mauna Loa (Great or long
mountain ) has a most interesting active center on its summit,
Mokuaweoweo
( Blood-red island ), from which enormous rivers of lava are hurled down
to the waiting ocean many miles below.

What is said to be the most active crater in the world, Kilauea, lies on
an eastern spur of Mauna Loa at an elevation of 4,000 feet above the sea
. This crater is a great caldron or pit crater, and has been known among
the Hawai'ians for centuries as Ka-Lua Pele ( the Pit of Pele ). Below
Kilauea are a number of craters of simular character, great sunken holes
or pits in a country of almost even surface.

Kilauea is a surprse to the tourist. Ki-lau-ea means " the rising up or
living leaf of the ti-plant." Ea means " to rise up"
and also " to live." Ki-lau means " ti-leaf."
A gradual ascent by rail or motor-car today, for about thirty miles
brings the visitor to a flat region miles in extent and sparsely covered
with giant tree ferns called Cibotium Menziesii, along with shrubs and
gray-leaved trees with fringed red balls of flowers. Here and there
small clouds of steam come from crevices around a hotel where the
traveler finds his resting place.

In front of the hotel, and not seen until the motor-car stops, is the
crater whose edges are almost level with the surrounding plain. It is a
precipice-walled bowl, three miles across, with a multitude of steam
jets breaking through its vast floor and a great cloud of smoke rising
froma pit in a black border-land of frozen lava. Kilauea looks like a
congealed lake whose glossy black hard waves had hardened while rolling
and struggling with
each other under some fierce tempest. It is, however, a cone ascending
gradually to the fire-pit from these precipitous edges of the bowl.

Under the smoke cloud of tthe pit lies the active lake of fire called
Halemaumau. 

From this volcano Kilauea and the crater Mokuaweoweo, which lies like an
island on the top of Mauna Loa, nearly 10,000 feet higher, come enormous
and sometimes destructive lava flows. They are called rivers of lava,
but a lava river, unlike a stream of water, flows underneath a
continually cooling and hardening crumpled surface, pushing its way from
under and at last leaving long tunnels. Sometimes new lava melts its way
through the walls of these caves and pours along the path left ages
before, frequently finding an outlet even under the waves of the sea.
The natives say," Pele has gone to the sea by the ala huna 
( hidde path )."

There are two kinds of lave which these rivers carry down. Onein cooling
becomes very smooth and hard. Its surface shines like black satin.
Professor C. H. Hitchcock, the eminent geologist, says;
" The name pa-hoe-hoe signifies having the aspect of satin or having a
shining smooth surface. It is quite hummocky and shows a wrinkled ropy
strucure." The glossy part is real volcanic glass shining on the surface
because the silica which is used in making glass rises to the top of the
cooling lava. It is lighter than te other ingredients. This pa-hoe-hoe
lava is abundant in the fields around Mexico City.

The name a-a, which signifies " torn by the roots," is the name given to
another kind of lava. An a-a flow is lava changed into bristling, ragged
rocks, with innumerable fine sharp edges cutting like fragments of
broken glass. It appears very much like slag from iron furnaces, only
infinately worse to handle. These two Hawai'ian words are now
scietifically used names for these classes of lava the world over.

The first sucessful attempt to secure the temerture of the boiling lava
in the lake of fire, was done by the Carnegie Institute at Washington
This study was done on Kilauea. They stretched a wire cable 1,500 feet
long from wall to wal over the lake of fire, then they ran wires through
pulleys along this cable and dropped the best instruments they had with
them straight down. Some of these were broken before registration could
be secured. The last thermometer registered 1850 drees Fahrenheit,
remaing steadily at that point until the thermometer was withdrawn.
later it was again lowered, but, according to the professor; " Pele
arose in her wrath, grasped the thermometer, flung hot lava on the
supprting wires thereby weakening them, and then with a final jerk broke
the thermometer from its support and swallowed it. Pele eems to like
ironware for diet."

The record of from 1800 degress to 2000 degress Fahrenheit seems to be
the normal heat of the lake of fire, sometimes, of course, rising much
higher under special conditions. The scientific observers when speaking
of lava heat say " It is 1850 degress Fahrenheit according to Pele.".  

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Next  - part 10



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