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Updated: May 2, 2025
On the flanks of Mauna Loa, four thousand feet above sea level, lies the caldera of Kilauea, an independent volcano whose dome has been joined to the larger mountain by the gradual growth of the two. In each caldera the floor, which to the eye is a plain of black lava, is the congealed surface of a column of molten rock.
This assertion is contrary to what M. Gay-Lussac and myself observed, before the great eruption of 1805, and while the lava was issuing from the crater. The vapours of heated water, which act on the fragments of lava scattered about on the caldera, reduce certain parts of it to a state of paste.
Happiness; an honorable and peaceful continuation of the family traditions; another Caldera, who, when Uncle Pascal grew old, would continue to work the lands that had been fructified by his ancestors, while a troop of little Calderitas, increasing in number each year, would play around the nag harnessed to the plow, eyeing with a certain awe their grandpa, his eyes watery from age and his words very concise, as he sat in the sun at the cabin door.
On the N.W. side of the cape the land runs in to the N.E. for four leagues, making a small bay, called Caldera Bay, at the entrance to which, at the N.W. side of the cape, a rivulet of fresh water discharges itself into the sea through very rich low lands abounding in lofty trees.
The inside of this funnel indicates a volcano, which for thousands of years has vomited no fire but from its sides. This conclusion is not founded on the absence of great openings, which might be expected in the bottom of the Caldera.
The women wept hopelessly. Death was certain. They only bewailed the long hours, perhaps days, of horrible torture that poor Pascualet would have to undergo. Caldera was unable to find among his relatives or friends any men brave enough to help him restrain the sufferer in his violent moments.
On the peak of Teneriffe, the wall, which surrounds the crater like a parapet, is so high, that it would be impossible to reach the Caldera, if, on the eastern side, there was not a breach, which seems to have been the effect of a flowing of very old lava. We descended through this breach toward the bottom of the funnel, the figure of which is elliptic.
From the lapse of time, and the action of the vapours, the inside walls are detached, and have covered the basin with great blocks of lithoid lavas. The bottom of the Caldera is reached without danger.
A particularly keen look-out for hostile ships was kept, in view of the alarming incident in Caldera Bay, but nothing of a suspicious character was sighted, and on the evening of the 13th of February the fleet anchored before the town of Antofagasta, the principal seaport of Bolivia, lying in a half-circle at a distance of about a mile and a half from the shore.
This harbor was a rendezvous for the Spanish war vessels and transports in 1861 when Spain resumed control of Santo Domingo and again in 1865 when she relinquished possession. The extent and depth of Caldera Bay are claimed to be sufficient to accommodate the largest ships, but vessels seldom venture into it, as the charts of this part of the coast are deficient.
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