This display from the summit of Mauna Loa continued about eighteen months.
Isabella Bird Bishop, author of “Six Months in the Sandwich Islands,” visited this active crater in 1874, and wrote about the crater itself. “Nearly opposite us a fountain of pure yellow fire, unlike the gory gleam of Kilauea, was throwing up its glorious incandescence. The sunset gold was not purer than the living fire. The roar of this surging lava sea was a glorious sound, the roar of an ocean at dispeace mingled with the hollow murmur of surf echoing in sea caves, booming on, rising and falling like the thunder music of windward Hawaii. The area below us was over two miles long and a mile and a half wide with precipitous sides and a broad second shelf about 300 feet below the one we occupied with a fire fountain three-quarters [[182]]of a mile away. On the way up the mountain there was a fearful internal throbbing and rumbling, rocks and masses of soil were dislodged, the earth reeled, then rocked again with such violence that I felt as if the horse and myself had gone over.”
During these months of 1874–1875 there were magnificent exhibitions of clouds reflecting volcanic fires caused by the upburst of lava fountains.
The summit crater of Mauna Loa is about 13,000 feet altitude. Snow has frequently covered the top of the mountain, lying in deep banks around the edge of the crater. The cold has acted quickly upon the lake of fire, congealing a large part of the surface into a hard floor of lava. Gases, steam, and smoke lift this floor and break through it with great violence, escaping from the melted lava in pillars of cloud against which the fires beneath mirror themselves in glorious displays of color. These outbursts were frequently called eruptions. The modern name is more correct. They are “glows,” reflecting wonderful fires beneath.
Mrs. Lyman mentions another eruption from the summit of Mauna Loa. “1877. Feb. 14. Eruption seen on the mountain. Ten days extinct then broke out lower down the mountain and reached the sea in a few days, near Kaawaloa, Kealakekua Bay.” [[183]]
Dana says, “The columns of illuminated steam rose with fearful speed to a height of 14,000 to 17,000 feet and then spread out into a vast fiery cloud looking at night as if the heavens were on fire.”
After this, there was an underground eruption to the sea marked by a fissure down the mountain side through which clouds of steam and smoke were forced. The lava at last found its place for escape under the sea.
H. M. Whitney, the editor of the Hawaiian Gazette, was a witness of this submarine eruption. In the issue of Feb. 28, 1877, he wrote: “As the steamer Kilauea came toward the bay, the passengers saw some canoes rowing about over boiling water. The natives reported that about three o’clock in the morning of Feb. 24, they had seen innumerable red, blue, and green lights dancing in the waters. Morning disclosed a new volcano in the sea. The southern shore of the bay has been known as Keei point. The eruption appeared to be in a straight line out from this point. Three boats from the steamer went out, cruising over the most active part of the boiling waters, appearing as if passing over rapids. Blocks of lava two feet across were thrown up from beneath, striking the boats and jarring them. The lava was quite soft and no harm was done. Six stones hit the boat in one [[184]]minute. Several hundred pieces of these stones were floating on the sea at one time. Nearly all the pieces on reaching the surface were red hot, emitting steam and gas strongly sulphurous. Several were taken into the boats, perfectly incandescent and so molten in the interior that the lava could be stirred with a stick, the water having penetrated only about an inch. When these stones cooled and became water soaked they sank rapidly. The specimens taken from the water were of the a-a variety and very light. Probably only the lightest came to the surface. Some of the lava consisted of Pele’s hair, red hot, yet preserving its peculiar characteristics.”
Mrs. Lyman has the record of a terrible tidal wave which struck Hilo harbor in May of that same year: “1877, May 10. A heavy tidal wave at 5 A.M., destroying 34 houses on the Waiakea side of the harbor, also the bridge and twelve houses between Waialama and Aiko’s old store. One hundred and sixty people homeless, some bruised, bones broken, five dead. Wave was thirteen and a half feet above high water mark at Waiakea, swept inland forty rods, accurate measurement.” Following this on May 31, came the record “severe shake, things thrown down.”
Dana says: “A destructive earthquake wave was felt at the Hawaiian Islands on May 10, [[185]]1877, which rose at Hilo to a height of 36 feet. But it was of South American origin, where there were heavy earth-shocks, and not of Hawaiian.”