Hundreds of volcanoes.

The volcanoes of Hawaii are a class by themselves.  They are not only the tallest, but the biggest and strangest in the whole world.  Considering that they reach from the bottom of the Pacific ocean (18,000 feet deep here) to over 15,000 feet above sea level, they really stand 33,000 feet high from their suboceanic base to their peaks.  The active craters on the islands number 300, but the dead craters, the ancient chimneys of subterranean lava beds, are numbered by the thousands.  The islands are of lavic formation.  Evidences of extinct volcanoes are so common that one seldom notices them after a few weeks on the islands.  Ancient lava is present everywhere.  The natives know all its virtues, and, while some ancient deposits of lava are used as a fertilizer for soils, other lava beds are blasted for building material and for macadamizing roads.  Titanic volcanic action is apparent on every side.  Every headland is an extinct volcano.  Every island has its special eruption, which, beginning at the unfathomable bottom of the sea, has slowly built up a foundation and then a superstructure of lava.  On the island of Hawaii and on Molokai are huge cracks several thousands of feet deep and many yards wide which were formed by the bursting upward of lava beds ages and ages ago.  The marks of the titanic force are plainly visible.

Mark Twain is authority for saying that the two great active volcanoes, Mauna Loa and Kilauea, on the island of Hawaii, are the most interesting in the world.  Certainly they are the most unique.  Mauna Loa is 14,000 feet above sea level.  Every six or seven years there is an eruption from its sides and several times the flow of lava has threatened the ruin of the town of Hilo, thirty miles away.  The crater on Mauna Loa is three miles in diameter and 600 feet deep.  Over the crater hangs an illuminated vapor which may be seen at night over 200 miles distant.  When Mauna Loa is in violent eruption a fountain of molten lava spouts every minute over 250 feet in the air, bursting into 10,000 brilliantly colored balls, like a monstrous Roman candle pyrotechnic.

Then there is Kilauea—­a shorter and flatter volcanic mountain sixteen miles distant.  It has the greatest crater known—­one nine miles across and from 300 to 800 feet deep.  And such a crater!  In it is a literal lake of molten lava all the time.  At times the lava is over 100 feet deep and at other times it is 200 feet, according to the pressure on it deep in the bowels of the earth.  Signs of volcanic activity are present all the time throughout the depth of the molten mass in the form of steam, cracks, jets of sulphurous smoke and blowing cones.  The crater itself is constantly rent and shaken by earthquakes.  Nearly all tourists go to see the marvelous eruptions on Mauna Loa and Kilauea.  Hotels have been built on the mountain sides for the accommodation of sightseers, and there are plenty of guides about the craters.