USGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, data may be freely used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by other organizations. Volcano Kilauea, Described As "House of Everlasting Fire" _______ MOUTAIN IS SURROUNDED WITH WONDERFUL VEG- ETATION AND MANY FREAKS OF LAVA FORMA- TIONS. _______ Former Columbus Grove Woman, Mrs. Scott, a Resident of Honolulu is Hostess to Mr. and Mrs. Jones and Gives Then A Most Cordial Reception. _______ (By C. H. Jones) We were told that a visit to the Bishop Museum would be worth our while and that the "Feather Robes" would be exhin- ited at two o'clock Saturday afternoon and that they are onle placed on exhibition on the first Saturday of each month. Al- though this was April Fools Day we were not fooled and were quite lucky to be able to see them for they are said to be the onle specimens in the world. They are robes made for the former kings of the Hawaiian Islands, and are made from bird feathers sewed on fabric, some being made up of all yellow feathers, some of red and some of red and yellow. The Oo or Moho birds are yellow and the Mamo are black native birds, and it is said that one of the yellow capes required over one hundred years in the making and is valued at a million dollars. These exhibits are considered so caluable that they will not permit you close enough to touch them and they are not handled, byt are gastened to poles that slide into a cabinet without handling. So many birds were required to make these curious capes that the species most used are about ex- tinct. They are simply relics of pagan kings and are of no real value. On leaving the museum I went to the athletic field of the Hono- lulu Athletic Club, where I found a rather important event in the athletic world taking place, and was fortunate enough to obtain a snap shot of the famous Paddock on the stretch close the finish line when he broke his own world record in a 220 yard dash. Like all other tourists we saw the "Hula" dance and were dis- gusted at spending time at such amusement, but like "Chinatown" in San Francisco, it must be done. Sunday April 2nd we attended the Central union Church (Con- gregational) and went early enough to visit the Sabbath School a short while, before the church service. The large auditorium was filled and we heard a very excellent sermon. In the evening we sail- ed for Hilo on the island of Ha- waii. There are twelve islands in the Hawaiian group and eight of them are inhabited. The most important is Oahu on which Ho- nolulu, the cheif city and capital of the territory is located. Hawaii from which the group takes its collective name, is larger in size than all the others com- bined and Maui is second in size, and Molakai is famous for its leper settlement. The route from Honolulu lies among the other islands and is a nights run of 197 miles to Hilo (meaning the "New Moon" on account of the crecent shaped bay) is a city of about 7,000, fronting the broad smooth harbor, and is at the foot of the famous volcano Kilauea, which is the greatest active volvano in the world. The greater mountains Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea rise in the background, Mauna Kea being the highest mountain in the Pacific and is perpetually covered with snow. Mauna Loa is a semi-dormant volcano from which now and then a stream of lava flows down to the sea. We were greatly favored in having Prof. Norton a geoligist in the employ of the U.S. who has been inves- tigating and studying the island volcanoes for the past sixteen years give an illustrated stereop- ticon lecture on the ship the even- ing we left Honolulu, and also in having him accompany our party to the volcano where he also lec- tured and explained the history and phenomena of Kilauea. He was also well versed in the inter- esting legends, languages and customs of the Polynesian peo- ples. After breakfast we landed and immediately boarded a train taking a course that was more like a mountain roadway than a railway. We wended our course close to the sea, through rocky cutting and tunnels sometimes perilously near the edge of a cliff far above the foamy waves, then through a cut, the sides of which were covered with ferns and out on the slender steel trestle where the train would stop over a yawn- ing gorge, that we might view a water fall, rushing over the jagged lava rocks on the left hand and a sugar mill nestling down close to the sea on the right. We noted snake-like flamer winding in and out and around the curves of the hills and cross- ing the gulches of weblike trest- les and were informed that they were used to float the sugar cane from the fields to the sugar mills. For thirty-five miles we sped through cane fields, past water falls, over canyons aand gulches, through cuts tunnels and glens with almost continual glimpses of the sea, on this very interesting ride, then we paused a few min- utes and made our return over the same route. After luncheon at the Hilo Ho- tel we started for the crater of Kilauea over an excellent con- crete road which after a few miles gave way for a lava rock pike that was not in the very best condition but was much better than we expected, and with con- tinuous straight runs at mostly gentle grades we motored for thirty miles, but it was always up, up, up, and at first there were cane fields, which soon gave way to lava beds covered with ferns that seemed very large to usm but as we progressed grew gradually larger, until they were simply sigantic, being twenty-five or thirty feet high, with leaves ten or twelve feet long, and so ______ a jungle that the eye could not penetrate it but a very short dis- tance. There were other bril- liant colored trees interspersed with plants and lowering vegia- tion, noticeably one bushlike tree occuring frequently, with a mass of bell like whit flowers, that the native driver called Hawaiian Bells. However the last few miles there was little else than the mon- ster fern trees. Passing the "Cra- ter Hotel" a mile further on we drew up at the "Volcano House(?)" located on a ledge of lave rock, midst numerous crevices where sulpharous smelling stean was is0 suing, and all excited the party hustled out anxious to being the adventure. As it was late in the afternoon we had little time before dinner to do much, but we walked over the lava bed of the extinct crater in some of the fissures to inves- tigate the gaseous steam being emitted and easily learned that it was hot. By the time dinner was over it was growing quite dark and we the motor cars and started for the active crater, equipped with raincoats, over-shoes and electric flash lights, we wound around the crooked road among the ferns and for several mile, there all at once vegetation ceased and there were nothing but wave like masses of black lave, and at the end of a seven mile drive we alighted to tramp another half mile, stumbling over the uneven ledges of the lave bed and as we neared the "rim" of the crater the sky lit by the lucid hues of "Home of everlasting fire" and the air laden with the sulphurous steamy gases, our curiosity grew intensely. At last in a blast of sulphurous air, created by the heat generated by the eruption, we gazed over the "rim" into the bowl of the crater on thousand feet in diam- ater and with sheer decent of about two hundred feet into the lightning like zigzagged crevices lining its surface, and the lakes of molten lava, bubbling and sputtering and emitting small geysers, then hardening and be- coming dark in one place and breaking out in another, it ap- peared like a veritable hades. After being transfixed in aw* for some time we moved to place of shelter from the sulphurous gale created by the vortex of heal* and viewed it for a couple of hours, when we regretfully turn- ed from the facination uncanny freak of nature and returned to the hotel and retired to dream of "The House of Everlasting Fire". The active crater is called in the native language "Halemau man" and means "The House of Everlasting Fire". It is stated that it rains every day in the year on Kilauea and we have no evidence to disprove it, but as was our usual good for- tune, it rained in the morning be- fore we ascended in the afternoon and we had a fairly clear after- noon and evening, but there was a light rain the latter part of the night, and when we arose that morning it was damp and very cool, and the big fires crackling in the two fire places in the large lobby of the hotel was a pleasant greeting. After breakfast accompanied by Dr. Norton we first visited the "tree molds", which are evidences of the freaks of an eruption. These "tree molds" are deep holes in the lava rock. ranging from a few inches to three or more feet in diameter and so deep you could not see the bottom. Dr. Norton explained that a for- est of Koa trees had been in ages past swept over by a flow of molten lava which surrounded the trees, and instantly hardened by contact with the bark suffic- iently that when the tree was gradually consumed by the heat, the molded forms of the trees re- mained, and even the rough in- dentations of the bark remained. Then we motored to an opening in the fern forest where we alighted and walked into the fairyland fern forest to the edge of a glen and decended the steep bank on a stairway or rather cor- duroy path, the steps of which were made of the bodies of the fern trees, crossing the glen among these wonderful ferns, with the golden sunlight sifting down through the great leaves, we as- cended the opposite bank by a wooden stairway to the opening of a lava "tube" or cave. The "tube" was so regular that it looked artifical, having an oval top or ceiling and very level bot- tom or floor, and Dr. Norton ex- plained that it was caused by an- other freak of an eruption, by the cyclonic rush of the air boring a hole through the molten lava and the surface chilling immediately, making a permanent tube. By the aid of flash lights we made our way through the cave for several hundred feet to where an opening had been made in the roof and a stairway constructed for exit, and then wended our way back to our automobiles, and continued our way to again view the wonders of "Halemau- mau". Surrounded by the cur- iously and grotesquely formed redish black masses, twisted and undulating in a gradual ascent to the "rim", we climbed over this wonderful lava bed, and once more gazed in awe down into the depths of this mammoth cauldron of nature. On the way we passed some young men in khaki uniforms cooking a meal by the aid of the steam emitted from a crevice and they were having a jolly time over it. We stood for another hour or more gazing into the gaseous, steaming, boiling, rumbling mass- es, and tring to get pictures of it, but on account of the smoky condition they were but fairly satisfactory. Then we started back in driving cold misty rain, which continued all the way back to the "Volcano House", where we ate our luncheon, and then re- turned to Hilo through a series of showers but which cleared away before reaching the city, where it was very warm and the sun shining brightly. At five o'clock we sailed from Hilo and for an hour we stood on deck watching panorama of the vanishing city, the luxuriant and highly cultivated fields and misty mountains looming grimly in the background; and while memory lasts we will not forget the thrills of Halemaumau (The House of Everlasting Fire) situated on the summit of Kilauea, for it was a most marvelous spellbinding sight. As we sailed out into the night at the time of our preparations to retire, Mrs. jones happened to glance out the port hole and be- held great numbers of flashing lights, comparatively close to our vessel, and we were much sur- prised to see that we were pass- ing a city well lighted with elec- tric lights. Next morning we were in Ho- onlulu harbor and immediately after breakfast were driven back to the beautiful "Moana Hotel" on Waikiki beach. In the fore- noon we did a little shopping and in the afternoon we were splen- didly entertained by our friend Mrs. Scott, who was born and reared to womanhood in Colum- bus Grove, but who has been a resident of the hawaiian Islands for many years. "House of everlasting fire" and the air laden with the sulphurous steamy gases, our curiosity grew intensely. At last in a blast of sulphurous air, created by the heat generated by the eruption, we gazed over, the "rim" into the bowl of the crater one thousand feet in diam- eter and with sheer decent of about two hundred feet into the lightning like zigzagged crevices lining it surface, and the lakes of molten lave, bubbling and sputtering and emitting small geysers, then hardening and be- coming dark in one place and breaking out in another, it ap- **Article continues on another Pg** ----