Hawaiian Legends of Volcanoes (mythology) / Collected and translated from the Hawaiian

GIANT TREE FERNS ON THE ROAD TO KILAUEA
HAWAIIAN LEGENDS of VOLCANOES
(MYTHOLOGY)
Collected and Translated from the Hawaiian BY W. D. WESTERVELT AUTHOR OF “LEGENDS OF OLD HONOLULU,” “LEGENDS OF GHOSTS AND GHOST-GODS,” “LIFE OF KAMEHAMEHA,” ETC.
ELLIS PRESS, BOSTON, MASS., U.S.A CONSTABLE & CO., LONDON, G.B. 1916
Copyright, 1916, by William Drake Westervelt Honolulu, T.H.
BOSTON, U.S.A. PRESS OF GEO. H. ELLIS CO.
However doctors may differ concerning the way that our earth came into being, most of them agree that in its early days meteoric bodies from space flew together and produced a hotter globe than at present. Perhaps its surface was all covered with vast circular lakes of lava such as our telescopes reveal in great perfection, ring upon ring, over the surface of the moon. On the moon these rings and pits are now cold, remnant from a time when the gases from the inside of our satellite were bubbling forth from a great internal heat supply and bringing with them oceans of slag which seethed and swirled in circular pools which formed symmetrically within ramparts of their own spatter.
It is clear that heat and gas action are the motive agents which make volcanoes so lively, so much so that simultaneously Mauna Loa and Kilauea may maintain liquid columns of lava at two different elevations ten thousand feet apart. This is accounted for by the fact that the melted glass is so charged with gases under high pressure that it seethes up and down in the cracks and tubes which it occupies according to their form and size, and according to the coming together or opening apart of their walls, just as any sparkling wine makes a foam which rises or falls according to the suddenness of the uncorking or to the size of the glass into which it is poured.
Some such story as this outlines the tremendous events, explosions, whirlwinds, avalanches, lava flows, earthquakes, and fiery blasts which composed the narrative of the domain of Pele before man appeared upon the scene. We do not know how much more frequent these things were in the old days, but there were probably eras of quiet and eras of excitement just as at present. It behooves us to give the closest possible attention to all the events of the present and to record them faithfully, so as to render to the scientific historian of the future a consecutive account of all the details which will lead up to some great crisis in the days to come.