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| THE VOLCANO OF KILAUEA - Between the Chinese Theatre and the Ferris Wheel stood
the cyclorama of the greatest active volcano in the northern
hemisphere. In front of the pavilion was a heroic statue of Pele,
the Hawaiian goddess of -re, made by Mrs. Copp, the sculptor, and
under the canopy a choir of Kanak musicians sang to the public,
evoking much applause. The word is pronounced "Kill-away-ah," or
nearly so. The great circular painting was made for a company of
which the Hon. Lorin A. Thurston, Hawaiian Minister to the United
States, was President, and W. T. Se_sen, Manager. Walter W.
Burridge, a painter, of Chicago, visited Hawaii and made a two-years'
study of the mountain; thereafter, with a corps of assistants, he
painted and built the scene, the entire expense rising to $80,000.
The crater is eight hundred feet deep and three miles across. It is
a lake of bubbling and thunderous lava set in the side of Mona Loa, a
mountain fifteen thousand feet high. The station for the spectator
of the picture was a heap of lava which had exuded and solidified in
the centre of the crater. A priest climbed the cliffs that rimmed
the scene and chanted an invocation to Pele, and his form added to
the realism of the effects. The mountain peak and the Pacific Ocean,
the baleful fires of the never slumbering volcano, the mists and lava
floods, all conspired to make a great picture. |
