LAVA TREES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19695, 23 January 1926, Page 13

LAVA TREES.

During the past year the volcano of Kilauea, in the Hawaiian Islands, haa been unusually active, and this fact has drawn attention to one of the world’s greatest curiosities. On the slopes of the mountain there ie a perfect forest of lava trees, which is believed to have bean formed nearly a century ago. The trees which form this forest are amazingly lifelike, even the grain of the bark being represented, yet they are nothing bnt shells of lava. The way in which this strange forest was formed is interesting. The original trees were of a kind known locally as ohia, a species abundant in the Hawaiian Islands. During a terrific outburst on the part of the volcano, when tire lava poured out in a vast cataract, 40 or 50 foot deep, the whole of a thickly-wooded region was overwhelmed. The fluid point of lava is 2000 deg. F., but it instantly solidifies at a point a few degrees below this high figure. When the trees were buried in this stream of liquid fire, the lava which came into touch with the trunks and' branches immediately solidified, owing to the contact with the cold bark. The main flow of the molten stream, swept on, leaving each, tree with only a thin coating. This was sufficient to set the wood burning, and, in course of time, all the branches and the trunk of the tree were consumed, leaving nothing but the lava mould. The lava trees have stood the test for nearly 100 years, and seem likely to exist, indefinitely. Now and again some seeds of ohia will germinate and take root in tlie nppar branches of a lava tree. Then the upper part of the Java trank is adorned with a tuft of foliage which gives a lifelike appearance to what is really only a make-believe trunk.