Sudden uncorking is an apt simile for volcanoes in general, as most of them, unlike Kilauea, erupt very suddenly and explosively. This is due to the way in which the gas-charged liquid has become confined under the solidified mountain, and so only at long intervals becomes so hot and so insinuating that it finds a way out and, once released, spouts like the open safety-valve of a steam engine until the gas pressure is relieved. But even Kilauea is not guiltless of terrific and destructive explosive eruption. About 1790, thousands of tons of gravel and [[vi]]boulders and dust were strewn over Hawaii from Kilauea, covering hundreds of square miles, destroying the vegetation, and killing some of the people. This would appear to be a crisis reached every few centuries, and perhaps dependent on a building up of the mountain by lava to a certain height where the foam column is so confined that it can no longer overflow and so is compelled to explode.
Mauna Loa is a much more productive volcano than Kilauea, for its flows have covered a vast territory with new lava within the century past, whereas Kilauea has done much less overflowing. Everything indicates that Kilauea is older than Mauna Loa. Mauna Loa with its flows is tending through the ages to bury up Kilauea, and it is quite possible that within a few centuries there will be flows from Mauna Loa which will cascade over the wall into Kilauea crater and so make Kilauea Mountain appear to be a mere spur of Mauna Loa. Mauna Kea to the north appears to have been a great circular volcano about one hundred miles in diameter, and when it had extinguished itself by too much building, its lava took refuge in making two new cones out on the edge of the old mountain, namely Kilauea and Hualalai. These built up until they had nearly exhausted the lava available, owing to their height, and then a new vent, [[vii]]Mauna Loa, burst out in the center, filling a long spoon-shaped valley between them and to the southwest of Mauna Kea. The new mountain has now built itself up to a height almost equal to that of Mauna Kea and probably in a few centuries will begin exploding and heaping up cinder cones just as Mauna Kea did before it finally became extinct.
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.
T. A. Jaggar, Jr.,
Director Mass. Inst. Technology,
Hawaiian Volcano Observatory,
Kilauea Crater, October, 1916. [[viii]]
PRONUNCIATION
“A syllable in Hawaiian may consist of a single vowel, or a consonant united with a vowel or at most of a consonant and two vowels, never of more than one consonant. The accent of five-sixths of the words is on the penult, and a few proper names accent the first syllable.
In Hawaiian every syllable ends in a vowel and no syllable can have more than three letters, generally not more than two and a large number of syllables consist of single letters—vowels. Hence the vowel sounds greatly predominate over the consonant. The language may therefore appear monotonous to one unacquainted with its force.
In Hawaiian there is a great lack of generic terms, as is the case with all uncultivated languages. No people have use for generic terms until they begin to reason and the language shows that they were better warriors and poets than philosophers and statesmen. Their language, however, richly abounds in specific names and epithets.
The general rule, then, is that the accent falls on the penult; but there are many exceptions and some words which look the same to the eye take on entirely different meanings by different tones, accents, or inflections.