The Pacific Commercial Advertiser

FIRES OF KILAUEA
ARE GOING DOWN

After ten days of unusual activity,
Madame Pele has again deserted Kilauea, and once more the pit of Halemaumau is only a great steaming caldron, with no fire in sight.

Advices received by Mr. Richard H.
Trent per the Claudine on Saturday tell
that on Saturday the 15th there was
still considerable flow from the cone
that had been formed, but in diminished
quantity. Sunday the flow ceased, but
the cone still displayed activity, which
continued throughout Monday and
Tuesday. On Wednesday the 19th, the
fire in the cone sunk some twenty or
thirty feet below the level of the lava,
and on the following day, Thursday,
there was no fire to be seen, but there
still remained a thin smoke indicating
continued heat in the lower depths.

Madame Pele seems to be in fitful
mood these latter days. She flits away
to some West Indian or Mexican or
Central American locality and opens
her vials of wrath on helpless citizens.
and then rushes back to her quiet
"country home" on Hawaii for a sea-
son of rest and meditation. She kin-
dles her fires only lightly in Kilauea,
occasionally furnishing for admiring
visitors a display that cannot be dupli-
cated at any other spot on earth. and
then sulks for a while, or else takes a
trip to distant parts, only to return
again after having blown up some old
crater that had been sleeping for a few
hundred years. But she has never yet
allowed the fires to go entirely out in
Halemaumau, and the signs are that
for many years yet to come she will
continue to use Kilauea as her home
when she is in her best moods.