that the view is clear for four miles down the stream, taking in its entire breadth. In some places the fissure yawns twenty to thirty feet, in others it is ten, six, four and two feet. Near the head I crossed it without difficulty, and I followed it for some distance, and looked down its fearful jaws. It is hung with stalactites, and is still hot at some points. I found alum sulphur, sulphate of lime, and Glauber salts in small quantities. None of the salts are abundant, and the products and general character of the eruption are similar to our former eruptions.

The whole length of the stream does not exceed ten milesprobably it is less-and I would give the average width, by uniting all the branches, one and a half miles. The depth varies from two feet to fifty, and more. The general course is south, or nearly so.

I employed two men to measure across, but they were stopped, about midway, by an impassable fissure. This I much regretted, as time would not allow me to wait for another trial. I, however, left a request for another effort and hope to hear of success.

I returned via Kilauea, and made examinations of the great crater and its surroundings. All around the upper rim the earth is terribly rent, and immense avalanches of rocks have been detached from the walls and sent thundering down to regions below.

Before the earthquake of the 2d of April, the lavas of Kilauea burst up vertically in the bottom of Little Kilauea, and spread over the old deposit of 1832. On the night of the earthquake the fires of Pele began to be extinguished and her lavas to escape through underground passages. Consequently, a subsidence has taken place in all the central portion of the crater. The outer circumference of the pit remains intact, a well defined "Black Ledge" of 100 to 600 feet wide. The central area, or the great plateau which has been lifted up from year to year by the forces below, and without disturbing the surface, has sagged gently down, carrying with it its botanical garden of ferns and ohele bushes undisturbed. The subsidence is about 300 feet in the center, forming a great basin, or caldron, with its sides or angles of 30° to 60°. The ferns are still growing in the bottom of this basin, 300 feet below their position on the first of April.

In going to the south lake we first cross the "Black Ledge," then descend into the great basin, cross its bottom, and then rise an incline of 20° on the south side, for half a mile,,when we come to Old Halemaumau. But how changed! It is a pit 500 feet deep, about 3,000 feet in diameter on its upper rim, and 1,500 on the bottom. It is nearly circular. Its

walls are, in some places, perpendicular, in others, overhanging, and in others, on an angle of 40°, but everywhere jagged and threatening. When I was there a little light, or faint blush, was seen at night, but no fire was visible during the day; but there was much smoke.

My daughter H. has prepared the outlines of a map of Hawaii, on which you will find some marks which may help you as to localities, courses, etc. We have no really correct map of the island.

I see Mr. Brigham's map has several important errors in the location of places, and in the situation and comparative sizes of lava-flows. The eruption of 1855 was immensely greater than that of 1859, but his map makes the latter much the larger.

The amount of matter discharged by our recent eruption is small compared with that of many former eruptions. The eruption was short and fierce. So rapid was the rush of the rivers of lava, that cattle, grazing on the plains, were surrounded before they were aware of danger. Some were consumed; but I saw several green islets, of two and three acres, where ten or twenty head were inclosed for days and afterward rescued. Houses were, also, surrounded by the lavas and left unscathed, and a great ridge of burning aa would come within twenty-five or thirty feet of a house, pass by it, cool as high as the ridge of the house, and not burn it. I visited a family of four on an island formed by the igneous flood, where they were inclosed for ten days on an area of about one acre. The burning stream came within twenty feet of their house, on one side, and yet the house stands, and they all remain in it. I asked them what they did and how they felt during those days of "fiery trial." They replied, that when they found themselves surrounded and all hope of retreat cut off, they gave themselves up to God, and continued in prayer. Many cases of escape from the fire and from the sea were marvelous, and seem like miracles.

Ere this reaches you, you will have heard of the strange tidal phenomena which occurred around our group on the 14th, 15th and 16th of August. Without any apparent cause the sea rose and fell three to six feet once in ten, fifteen, and twenty minutes, for three days. I was at Keaiwa at the time and only heard the reports. These reports vary as given by different individuals and in different localities.

These rapid and long-continued oscillations of the sea are a puzzle to us, and we wait to hear from the coast, or from some other regions, to decide whether the cause was near or remoteAM. JOUR. SCI. SECOND SERIES, VOL. XLVII, No. 139.—JAN., 1869.

whether the result of submarine eruptions, or the effect of great disturbances in distant parts.

Our shakes continue up to this time, but they are not severe.

Number of houses buried by landslide,

66 "deaths

10

31

37

..108

46

46

"earthquake,

All the above disasters were in Kau.

Hilo suffered not a little in buildings and other works.

On the 8th of August Hilo and Puna were visited by a most awful and protracted thunder-storm. It commenced a little after noon and continued until midnight. The clouds rested on the earth and the whole atmosphere was surcharged with electricity. The air was like hot steam, and white streams of lightning were constantly flashing out and playing along the ground, the report coming with the flash and seeming to make the earth tremble. I was in Puna at the time, and the natives were greatly alarmed. One man went out of doors and returned immediately, saying, that the lightning looked like white hens, running on the ground around him. This electrical storm must have been excited by the volcanic action, as thunderstorms in summer are as rare with us as rain in Egypt or on the coast of Peru.

The map I send does not profess to be exactly correct, but it is sufficiently so to give you a general idea of localities. A sharp earthquake occcurred on the 6th inst.

ART. IX.-Geographical Notices; by D. C. GILMAN.

I. NOTES ON CHINA, BY REV. W. A. P. MARTIN, D.D. A RECENT number of the Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, contains an account of an overland journey from Peking to Shanghai, made in 1866, by Rev. W. A. P. Martin, D.D. This distinguished Chinese scholar, has been for many years a missionary of the American Presbyterian Board, and is now by appointment of the Imperial authorities of China, one of the Professors in the newly established University of Peking. The article referred to discusses four topics; I, the imperial road leading south from Peking; II, the present condition of the Jews in Honan; III, the navigation of the Yellow River; and IV, the central section of the Grand Canal.

From this communication we gather such facts as are of most interest to scientific readers.

1. The Si-Shan Hills.

Passing south from Peking to Kai-fung, the writer thus refers to the metallic deposits of the Si-Shan hills, which meeting him outside the gates of Peking run parallel to his course for nearly four hundred miles. Their highest peaks were "crowned with snow (in February and March) and glittering like a thousand gilded domes, their rugged sides resembling the wave-worn shore of a long retired ocean."

"Silver, they certainly do contain, but the mines of Shan-si, whether from defective engineering or other causes, are no longer remunerative, and have ceased to be worked. Of gold we have no notice; but the "black diamond" is found there in rich deposits, and along with it an abundance of iron, the most precious of all metals. Iron founderies are in operation in at least two districts-one near Peking and the other in Hooh-lu-hien, about two hundred miles to the south. As we passed the latter place, we met a vast number of carts conveying its productions to all parts of the province. These ranged from kitchen utensils up to salt boilers, five or six feet in diameter. They appeared to be well executed and the metal of good quality.

"Of coal deposits, there seems to be a continuous chain, extending from the verge of the Mongolian plateau to the banks of the Yellow River. In the vicinity of Peking there are beds of both bituminous and anthracite, but at other points, I met only with the latter variety. With the exception of places near the Hwangho, it is transported mainly by land carriagenear Peking on the backs of camels, further south on mules, donkeys and wheel-barrows. The consequence is, that while at some points, it is cheap and abundant, at intermediate places it becomes so costly that the people are obliged to burn reeds and millet-stalks or glean a scanty supply of fuel from their stubble fields.

"Here then, on the line of this imperial road, and along the base of this range of hills is the track for the first grand trunk railway in the Chinese empire. Not only would it find close at hand iron for its rails and coal for its motive power; but the carriage of coal and iron to all the cities on the line including Peking and Tientsin would constitute one of the richest sources of its revenue. With Ta-ku for one terminus and Kai-fung for the other, it would pass through the capital of the empire, through two provincial capitals, six fu cities, and an indefinite number of chows and hiens.

"Between these places the amount of local travel is immense. At some points I estimated the number of vehicles passing in the course of a day at two hundred, employing from four to five hundred mules; while caravans of pilgrims mounted on camels were flocking to the shrines of Shan-si as the Hindoos do to those of Benares. The supposed railway would soon supersede these slow and painful modes of locomotion."

2. Recent Changes in the course of the Hwangho.

Dr. Martin crossed the Hwangho, the lesser one of the great twin rivers of China, at three points;-first near Kai-fung, where it still continues in its old channel; again at Tsingkiang-pu, where he walked dry shod over the place where Lord Amherst's junks offered incense to secure a favorable passage, and third near Tung-ping-chau, where the river was hastening in its new course toward the Gulf of Chili. He thus describes the wonderful change which has thrown five hundred miles of sea coast between its present and its former embouchure.

"According to the best information I was able to collect, the breach that opened the new channel occurred near E-fung-hien, thirty or forty miles to the east of K'ai-fung-fu. From that point, washing the city of K'au-ching, it flows north passing under the walls of Ts'au-chou-fu, as far as Fan-hien, where it spreads into a lagoon some thirty li in width. I passed near this place, and should have crossed the river here but for the ice that had formed on the lagoon. Turning in an easterly direction it intersects the Grand Canal at Chang-ch'iu-chen. It was at Li-lan-k'iau, a little beyond this place that I crossed it-it had there diverged from the canal to the distance of fifteen li. A stone bridge that gave name to the locality, and which in former years sufficed to carry passengers over a small tributary of the Ta-ts'ing, was lying in ruins, the advent of the Hwang-ho having tossed it aside with little ceremony. From this point, it not only usurps the bed of the Ta-ts'ing but obliterates its very name-the natives everywhere speaking of that startling phenomenon, the Coming of the Yellow Waters.'

"As to the cause of this phenomenon, we are left very much to conjecture. Superstition discovered a mysterious relation between the outbreak of the Taiping rebellion and the behavior of the unruly stream in refusing to pay tribute to the Eastern ocean, bursting over all bounds and pouring its waters into what the natives call the Northern Sea. They view it only in the light of a portent; but the alleged relation is not to be set aside as altogether imaginary. Dr. D. J. Macgowan, who in a commu