Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IX.djvu/850

830 KILAUEA KILBOURNE four parts, the old town, the Petcherskoi or new fort, both on steep hills, the Podol or low town, between the hills and the river, and the Vladimir town, which was added to the former by the empress Catharine II. The old town, which in the times preceding the con- version of the Russians to Christianity, under Vladimir the Great, was the principal seat of Sarmatian and Russian heathen worship, now contains, besides several other churches, the cathedral of St. Sophia, a magnificent structure of the llth century, and the palace of the Greek metropolitan. The fort contains the great Petcherskoi monastery from which it re- ceived its name, and which, together with the bastions and walls of the place, and the glitter- ing gilt and colored cupolas of the churches on the neighboring eminences, makes a strong impression upon the traveller who approaches the city from the other side of the Dnieper. This division embraces the barracks of the garrison, the arsenals and magazines, the houses of the officers, the palace of the governor, nu- merous churches, and the renowned catacombs of St. Anthony, consisting of excavations in a precipitous cliff on the banks of the river, which attract numberless pilgrims from all parts of Russia through veneration for the saints whose bodies are there preserved. Ad- joining are the catacombs of St. Theodosius, which contain a smaller number of saints. The Podol, which is the commercial part of the city, is regularly laid out, and embellished with gardens. Kiev has a large university, founded in 1834, to which are attached a library and cabinets of medals, zoology, min- eralogy, and botany. There are also various other institutions of learning, of which the Greek theological academy in the Petcherskoi monastery is the best endowed and most fre- quented. The manufactures and trade of the city are not important. Railways connect it with Moscow and St. Petersburg, Odessa, and Lemberg. A magnificent bridge, recently con- structed, spans the Dnieper. The earliest his- tory of Kiev is traced by some to the time of the Greek colonies near the N. coast of the Black sea; others place its foundation in the 5th cen- tury. In the last quarter of the 9th century it became the residence of the princes of Nov- gorod. As the capital of Christianized Russia, it was adorned in the llth century with a great number of churches. After the middle of the 12th, however, it was deprived of its rank, and subsequently suffered by the devastations of the Tartars, the Lithuanian and Polish wars, the plague, and fires. After having been for about three centuries in the hands of the Poles, it was reannexed to Russia by the peace of 1667. KII.U IM, a volcano in the E. part of the island of Hawaii, in lat. 19 25' N., Ion. 155 20' W. It is a pit or sunken plain 8 m. in cir- cumference, bounded by steep or perpendicular walls, and varying from 800 to 1,500 ft. in depth as the floor of the crater is raised or lowered by volcanic action ; eruptions drawing off the accumulated lavas from beneath and causing it to sink. Near the S. W. extremity of the pit is a lake of melted lava in a state of constant ebullition, called by the Hawaiians the Hale-mau-mau, or "house of everlasting fire," and formerly regarded as the residence of their principal divinity, the goddess Pele. From this caldron, which is not infrequently a third or a half mile in diameter, the fusion overflows in times of special volcanic activity, spreading out upon the cooled lava which forms the bottom of the crater ; or it bursts out at new points of this nearly level tract. The crater presents in consequence quite different appearances at different times, being especially changed by the occurrence of eruptions. These are generally preceded by a rise in the floor of the crater. When the lateral pressure of the accumulating lava becomes sufficiently great, it forces its way through the side of the moun- tain, often accompanied by violent earth- quakes, and breaks to the surface at a distance of 5, 10, or 20 m. from the great crater, which is usually emptied to a depth of 400 ft. Tho lava continues to flow seaward incessantly for several days, weeks, or months. These erup- tions are generally independent of those which take place from the crater upon the summit of Mauna Loa, 10,000 ft. higher than Kilauea, though the two craters are but 16 m. distant from each other. The lavas are very fluid, and contain much iron and augite. The great- est recorded eruption of Kilauea took place in June, 1840. The lava forced its way for 27 m. mostly underground, marking its course by rending the rocks above it, and sometimes splitting the trunks of large trees -so as to leave them standing astride of the crevices. The lava stream showed itself occasionally upon the surface of the ground, or in the pits of old craters ; and finally it broke from the ground in a resistless flood, at the distance of 12 m. from the coast, and rolled shoreward, sweeping forests, hamlets, and plantations before it, un- til, leaping a precipice of 40 or 50 ft., it plunged with loud detonations into the sea. Its entire course was 40 m. in length ; its depth, owing to the extreme roughness of the country over which it flowed, varied from 12 to 200 ft., and its width from 500 ft. to 3 m. The flow con- tinued for three weeks, and for a fortnight the light of it was so brilliant that at Ililo, 40 m. distant, fine print could be read at midnight. The coast was extended into the sea a quarter of a mile ; hills of scoria and sand were form- ed, one 300 ft. high ; the sea was heated for 20 m. along the coast, and multitudes of fishes were killed. This eruption poured out 15,400,- 000, 000 cubic feet of lava, which is probably about the average amount of the eruptions of Kilauea. Eruptions occurred in 1789, 1823, 1832, 1840, and 1866. The crater is not difficult of access, and is generally visited from Hilo. KILBOURNE, James, an American pioneer, born in New Britain, Conn., .Oct. 19, 1770, died in Worthington, O., April 9, 1850. He