The New International Encyclopædia/Mauna Loa

MAUNA LOA, lō′ȧ (Hawaiian, great mountain). The largest volcano in the world (though not the loftiest), occupying much of the central and southern portion of Hawaii (Map: Hawaii, F 4). It is 13,760 feet in height, and slopes gradually from the sea to the summit near the centre of the island, where the group of craters forms an immense caldron a mile and a half in diameter and 1000 feet deep. It exceeds by far any other volcano in the amount of lava discharged: the last great eruption (1880-81) sent a stream down the eastern slope 50 miles long and in some places 3 miles wide. The crater is in almost continuous activity and large eruptions have been frequent during the past century. On the eastern slope is the large crater of Kilauea (q.v.).