Mr. Whitney, of Honolulu, who was near the spot, says: "From these great fountains to the sea flowed a rapid stream of red lava, rolling, rushing, and tumbling like a swollen river, bearing along in its current large rocks that made the lava foam as it dashed down the precipice and through the valley into the sea, surging and roaring throughout its length like a cataract, with a power and fury perfectly indescribable. It was nothing else than a river of fire from 200 to 800 feet wide and twenty deep, with a speed varying from ten to twenty-five miles an hour. From the scene of these fire fountains, whose united length was about one mile, the river in its rush to the sea divided itself into four streams, between which it shut up men and beasts. Where it entered the sea it extended the coast-line half a mile, but this worthless accession to Hawaiian acreage was dearly purchased by the loss, for ages at least, of 4,000 acres of valuable agricultural land, and a much larger quantity of magnificent forest." The entire southeast shore of Hawaii sank from four to six feet, which involved the destruction of several hamlets and the beautiful fringe of cocoanut trees. Though the region was very thinly peopled, 100 lives were sacrificed in this week of horrors; and from the reeling mountains, the uplifted ocean, and the fiery inundation, the terrified survivors fled into Hilo, each with a tale of woe and loss. The number of shocks of earthquake counted was 2,000 in two weeks, an average of 140 a day; but on the other side of the island the number was incalculable. Since that time there have been several eruptions of these great Hawaiian volcanoes, but none so destructive to life and property. Only two years ago the crater of Mauna Loa was in eruption for some weeks, and travelers journeyed to the vicinity from all over the world to see the grand display of Nature's power in the fountains of lava and the blazing rivers flowing down the mountain side. The spectacle could be viewed perfectly at night from ships at sea, and from places of safety on shore. Across the North Pacific, from Kamschatka to Alaska, is a continuous chain of craters in the Aleutian islands, forming almost a bridge over the ocean, and from Alaska down the western coasts of the two Americas is a string of the mightiest volcanoes in existence. Iceland is a seething caldron under its eternal snows, and in a hundred places where some great, jagged cone of a volcano rises, seemingly dead and lifeless, only a fire-brand in the hand of nature may be needed to awaken it to a fury like that of which its vast lava beds, pinnacles, and craters are so eloquent.