text:  To make this narrative more intelligible it will be necessary to describe briefly the position and general features of this volcano which does not like most others spring from a cone but has excavated for itself a bed in the side of Mowna Roa which rises 14 000 feet above the level of the sea; it is about sixteen miles distant from the summit of the mountain wherein is an enormous extinct crater from which this is probably the outlet; it is 4000 feet above the level of the sea and twenty miles from the nearest coast line