The Hawaiian Archipelago - Six Months Among The Palm Groves, Coral Reefs, And Volcanoes Of The Sandwich Islands By Isabella L. Bird
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From This Grove We Travelled As Before In Single File Over An
Immense Expanse Of Lava Of The Kind Called Pahoehoe, Or Satin Rock,
To Distinguish It From The A-A, Or Jagged, Rugged, Impassable Rock.
Savants All Use These Terms In The Absence Of Any Equally Expressive
In English.
The pahoehoe extends in the Hilo direction from hence
about twenty-three miles.
It is the cooled and arrested torrent of
lava which in past ages has flowed towards Hilo from Kilauea. It
lies in hummocks, in coils, in rippled waves, in rivers, in huge
convolutions, in pools smooth and still, and in caverns which are
really bubbles. Hundreds of square miles of the island are made up
of this and nothing more. A very frequent aspect of pahoehoe is the
likeness on a magnificent scale of a thick coat of cream drawn in
wrinkling folds to the side of a milk-pan. This lava is all grey,
and the greater part of its surface is slightly roughened. Wherever
this is not the case the horses slip upon it as upon ice.
Here I began to realize the universally igneous origin of Hawaii, as
I had not done among the finely disintegrated lava of Hilo. From
the hard black rocks which border the sea, to the loftiest mountain
dome or peak, every stone, atom of dust, and foot of fruitful or
barren soil bears the Plutonic mark. In fact, the island has been
raised heap on heap, ridge on ridge, mountain on mountain, to nearly
the height of Mont Blanc, by the same volcanic forces which are
still in operation here, and may still add at intervals to the
height of the blue dome of Mauna Loa, of which we caught occasional
glimpses above the clouds.
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