“The lake broke through crevices and rushed with express speed out over the old lava surface, where flowing lava had not been known for forty years. A river formed on the side toward the Volcano House, plunged down the incline, covered the old horse corral where Professor Jaggar’s instruments were stored, sealing them forever. On and on the river spread until it stopped at the foot of the cliffs just below the Volcano House. All night and on St. Patrick’s day, which was also the birthday of Kamehameha III, the lava found new openings. It poured like a Niagara over the south side. A new fountain formed near the bluff southwest of Halemaumau and sent incandescent rockets into the air. Another fountain formed over toward the Kau road.”
Never in the history of personally conducted excursions had the volcano presented such a spectacle on schedule time. All discontented murmurings ceased. The goddess was surely working for the promotion committee; and a new hotel and enlargement of all present facilities, both there and in Hilo, were promptly on the way. To say nothing of improvements on the volcano highway.
Late tidings from this section of the territory augur that it will not in future be regarded as a mere amusement park. Its Titan energies are to be put to work. Professor Thomas Augustus Jaggar, Jr., volcanologist in charge (U. S. Department of Agriculture, Weather Bureau), has submitted that borings in search of heat for transformation into electric energy be made in the valley that lies between Kilauea—which he has found to be an independent mountain—and Mauna Loa. The idea, it seems, was suggested by John Brooks Henderson, zoologist from Washington, D. C., who backed up the proposal with a contribution of $1,500.00. These holes should be sunk at the base of the west bluff of Kilauea crater, in the bottoms of Kilauea and Kilauea Iki, and in the outer slopes of Kilauea and Mauna Loa. The Hawaii Volcano Research Association has approached the territorial legislature with this project, and funds have been appropriated. The borings are to be deep, to determine temperature, mineral and gas conditions, earthquake phenomena, and water underground at the volcanoes.
It is a fascinating thing to contemplate. Far more so than the invention of fast-obsolete war enginery and the squandering of dizzying billions on the same, while the victims of the infernal machines beg for bread and bed, or turn to crime. And think of the child-brains dulling in the factories of the land of the free and the home of the brave, because a time-dishonored law has been found constitutional in this day. Who knows that any one of these young brains might not be such an one as those of Henderson and the volcanologist on the slopes of Kilauea, who open up this vista of scientific romance for young and old. Not for nothing did Jack London, dying before the United States stepped into the “fight for democracy,” picture his native land “on her fat, helpless, lonely, unhonorable, profit-seeking way.” We got into the fight, wastefully, to be sure, but quickly and magnificently, and helped the rest of the world, temporarily, out of it. But look at us now, without conscience toward our educators, our children, our “heroes,” our “democracy.” One is tempted to indorse Shaw’s remark: “The longer I live, the more firmly I am convinced that the other planets use our earth as their lunatic asylum.”
But this is a book on Hawaii, and I have digressed—yet have I? This work of Tom Jaggar’s, on his heights geographically, creatively, head thrust forward into a golden age of scientific research for the good of man, stings one into swift realization of the cruel, wanton loss of strength and money that makes for destruction of body and mind, when it might be turned to account for the beautiful emancipations of life.
In July, 1921, Kilauea National Park, comprising a large area of Hawaii’s mountain land, including the fire-pit, was dedicated. The picturesque exercises included the recitation by a lineal descendant of a priest of Pélé, of a prayer to the fire goddess. This invocation, delivered in the full-toned chant of the old Hawaiians, was succeeded by an impressive recitation of the first Christian prayer delivered at the same brink by the spirited Kapiolani in olden days.
In connection with this National Park a road is to be built to the crater Mokuaweoweo at the summit of Mauna Loa. Owners of the land required for this highway are willing to donate the property. The possibilities of this road are set astir in one’s imagination by the popular watchword, “From Surfing to Ski-ing.”
The greatest volcanic event in Hawaii for the year 1919 was the activity of Mauna Loa itself. It was no surprise to the unsleeping keeper of Kilauea and the Long Mountain. That autumn, with its unruly flock of seismic disturbances, was a busy one for Professor Jaggar, who made more than one lofty ascent to the flaming pastures of his charge.
Back at Kilauea observatory, it was at 1:45 on the morning of Monday, September 29, that he noticed the fume and glow from Mauna Loa’s 13,675-foot crater, Mokuaweoweo, spreading to the southward along a route he knew well. By telephone he warned Kapapala and the other districts in the course the flow would take. Many is the account I have listened to from residents of those sections who saw destruction looming far above, and who hurried to pack their belongings in preparation for flight. Some thought they would go grey in a night, through the freaks played by the fluid avalanche, which would seem to skirmish in avoidance of an obviously doomed home. And I noticed a hesitance among these, as well as other island visitors who rushed to the ten-days’ wonder, about telling what they had seen.
“It’s like this,” they faltered. “We saw things that nobody would believe. How do we know? We tried it out when we got home. The thing was too big, too terrible, to impress those who had not seen it—in spite of the great smoke and glare that hid Hawaii from the other islands for days and days. Why, I stood on the hot bank of that burning cascade, and saw bowlders as big as houses, I tell you, perfectly incandescent, go rolling down to the sea; and—but there I go. I don’t think you’d believe the things I could tell you.”