a half, lavas have been repeatedly erupted within the last forty years from the summit platform, and have outflowed at points situated from 700 to 900 feet above the level of the lava lake within. Traces may also be seen, at varying distances back of the rim, of very many eruptions in which the rocks betoken great recency, although no dates can be assigned to their occurrence." [Illustration: FIG. 7. PANORAMA OF MOKUAWEOWEO _From U. S. Geological Survey_] [Illustration: FIG. 8. VIEW OF THE CRATER OF KILAUEA FROM THE VOLCANO HOUSE _From U. S. Geological Survey_] During his visit to this great pit, Captain Dutton succeeded in climbing down the almost vertical walls on the side of the crater, and, reaching the surface of the hardened lake, walked over it. It must have required no little courage to thus venture on the thin floor of a lake which he knew was filled to great depths with red hot boiling lava, for he was walking over the surface of a slumbering volcano, that might at almost any moment awaken, and opening, swallow him and his companions. Through enormous cracks in the floor, he could feel the heat from the molten mass, while, through the same openings came suggestive whiffs of sulphur vapor. During the eruption of this mountain, on January 23d, 1859, the light from the glowing lava streams was bright enough to read fine print at Hilo, a distance of thirty-five miles. During the eruption of 1852, a stream of white-hot lava was thrown up into the air from one of the fissures to a height of from 300 to 400 feet. [Illustration: STONES AND LAVA THROWN UPWARDS--ERUPTION OF MOKUAWEOWEO, HAWAII, JULY 4-21, 1899 _From a Stereograph, Copyright, by Underwood & Underwood_] When an eruption takes place in Mt. Loa the column of lava slowly rises in the crater, threatening to overflow its lowest edges, but before this can take place the pressure becomes so great that some portion of the mountain below the crater is fractured and the lava quietly escapes. During some conditions of the mountain every fifteen or twenty minutes a column of highly glowing lava is shot upwards like a fountain to a height of 500 feet and over, falling back into the lake in fiery spray. Unusual heights of these streams are generally followed by an eruption. These curious jets of molten rock certainly cannot be due to the pressure of higher columns of lava, since the crater itself is near the top of a high plain. They are believed to be due to steam formed by the penetration of the rain water that falls on this part of the mountain.