The Molten River, After Travelling Underground For Twenty Miles, Emerged Through A Fissure Two Miles In Length With A Tremendous Force And Volume.

It was in a pleasant pastoral region, supposed to be at rest for ever, at the top of a grass-covered plateau sprinkled with native and foreign houses, and rich in herds of cattle.

Four huge fountains boiled up with terrific fury, throwing crimson lava, and rocks weighing many tons, to a height of from 500 to 1000 feet. 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!" This same intelligent observer noticed as a peculiarity of the spouting that the lava was ejected by a ROTARY MOTION, and in the air both lava and stones always rotated TOWARDS THE SOUTH. At Kilauea I noticed that the lava was ejected in a southerly direction. From the scene of these fire fountains, whose united length was about a mile, the river in its rush to the sea divided itself into four streams, between which it shut up men and beasts. One stream hurried to the sea in four hours, but the others took two days to travel ten miles. The aggregate width was a mile and a half. 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 4000 acres of valuable pasture land, and a much larger quantity of magnificent forest. The whole south-east shore of Hawaii sank from four to six feet, which involved the destruction of several hamlets and the beautiful fringe of cocoa-nut trees. Though the region was very thinly peopled, 200 houses and 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 2000 in two weeks, an average of 140 a day; but on the other side of the island the number was incalculable. I.L.B.

LETTER XIII.

HILO. HAWAII. February.

The quiet, dreamy, afternoon existence of Hilo is disturbed. Two days ago an official intimation was received that the American Government had placed the U.S. ironclad "Benicia" at the disposal of King Lunalilo for a cruise round Hawaii, and that he would arrive here the following morning with Admiral Pennock and the U.S. generals Scholfield and Alexander.

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