Appalling Floods of Fire, Water and Earth.
HONOLULU, Hawaii, April 15,
Via SAN FRANCISCO, May 8, 1868. The greatest volcanic eruption recorded in modern times has occurred on the Island of Hawaii, one of the group of Sandwich Islands. For some time past it had been observed that the crater of Kilauea was very active, and that a new volcano had been formed. The volcano is the well-known Mauna Loa, and it has an elevation of 13,758 feet. On the 27th of March last the new eruption commenced and has continued up to the latest dates. During twelve days there have been two thousand shocks of earthquake, followed by fearful tidal waves which have destroyed entire villages, and caused the death of one hundred persons. For fifteen days the district Kona has been the center of motion for the great eruption. A gigantic stream of molten lava is flowing from the summit of Mauna Loa across the lands of Kakuka and Poakini to the sea at Kaulula landing. The slope and part of the summit of a mountain fifteen hundred feet high have been lifted up bodily by the earthquake and thrown over the tops of trees for a distance of over one thousand feet. At Waiohinu a creek has opened, extending from the sea. To as high as the eye can reach on the slope of Mauna Loa the lava is from one to seven feet in width, and an eruption of moist clay was thrown from the side of the mountain, between Lyman's and Richardson's, a distance of two miles and three-quarters, with a width of one mile, in the short space of three minutes. This terrible eruption overwhelmed houses, persons and hundreds of animals, and scattered death and destruction wherever the clay fell. A column of smoke seven and four-fifths miles in altitude was thrown out of Mauna Loa, obscuring everything for miles around, save where the bright spiral pillars of fire flashed upwards from the mouth of the volcano. The sight was one of the grandest but most appalling ever witnessed, and almost defies description. The immense tidal waves came rushing in with so great a height that they swept over the tops of the cocoa-nut trees on Kona coast. VIOLENCE OF THE EARTHQUAKE.
During the severest shock of earthquake, which took place on the 2d of April, no living creature could stand up for a moment. Immense bodies of earth were tossed about at great distances, as if they were feathers wafted from point to point by a storm of wind. Not one stone stands upon another as before in this district. Immense precipices, which have hitherto been a terror to all who have seen them, have been levelled to the earth, and where the ground was formerly smooth and unbroken for miles around, the earth has been rent asunder and upheaved, forming gigantic chasms and precipices. The entire topographical appearance of the country has been so completely changed that even those who have lived in the desolated district all their lives cannot recognize it or point out localities with which they were formerly familiar. Luckily, this part of the island is sparsely populated, and the lands are not in general cultivation. The British Ministry is a Committee of the House of Commons representing the will of the majority, and that majority is the Government. It can be seriously perplexed only by the interference of the Crown. This has not really happened since the time of George III, until now, when the Queen has requested a Ministry defeated by a heavy majority of the Commons not to resign. Her reason may be that this is a new Parliament, and the Reform Bill passed last year admits new constituencies whose voices she may think have a right to be heard before Parliament is dissolved. But when Mr. Disraeli announced that the Queen had asked him to remain, Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright did not hesitate to say that the course was flagrantly unconstitutional. Mr. Disraeli rather tauntingly replied by asking why Mr. Gladstone did not move a resolution of want of confidence. Mr. Gladstone made no answer. But if, after an emphatic majority for all the resolutions offered by him, he should still find that Mr. Disraeli did not intend to withdraw, Mr. Gladstone would unquestionably bring in a motion of want of confidence. Should Mr. Disraeli, instigated by the Queen, still persist, the Commons would stop the supplies. We do not believe that even Disraeli would venture to face the storm that would then burst, and which would hardly stop before it had swept away the Crown. It is to be presumed, therefore, that Mr. Disraeli will be succeeded by Mr. Gladstone within a few weeks.