dates back to 1669) with an area of about 200 acres and more than 8 m. of quays. They extend to the east of the outer harbour which on the west opens into the new outer harbour, formed by two breakwaters converging from the land and leaving an entrance facing west. The chief docks (see Dock for plan) are the Bassin Bellot and the Bassin de l’Eure. In the latter the mail-steamers of the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique are berthed; and the Tancarville canal, by which river-boats unable to attempt the estuary of the Seine can make the port direct, enters the harbour by this basin. There are, besides, several repairing docks and a petroleum dock for the use of vessels carrying that dangerous commodity. The port, which is an important point of emigration, has regular steam-communication with New York (by the vessels of the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique) and with many of the other chief ports of Europe, North, South and Central America, the West Indies and Africa. Imports in 1907 reached a value of £57,686,000. The chief were cotton, for which Havre is the great French market, coffee, copper and other metals, cacao, cotton goods, rubber, skins and hides, silk goods, dye-woods, tobacco, oil-seeds, coal, cereals and wool. In the same year exports were valued at £47,130,000, the most important being cotton, silk and woollen goods, coffee, hides, leather, wine and spirits, rubber, tools and metal ware, earthenware and glass, clothes and millinery, cacao and fancy goods. In 1907 the total tonnage of shipping (with cargoes) reached its highest point, viz. 5,671,975 tons (4018 vessels) compared with 3,816,340 tons (3832 vessels) in 1898. Forty-two per cent of this shipping sailed under the British flag. France and Germany were Great Britain’s most serious rivals. Havre possesses oil works, soap works, saw mills, flour mills, works for extracting dyes and tannin from dye-woods, an important tobacco manufactory, chemical works and rope works. It also has metallurgical and engineering works which construct commercial and war-vessels of every kind as well as engines and machinery, cables, boilers, &c.
Until 1516 Havre was only a fishing village possessing a chapel dedicated to Notre-Dame de Grâce, to which it owes the name, Havre (harbour) de Grâce, given to it by Francis I. when he began the construction of its harbour. The town in 1562 was delivered over to the keeping of Queen Elizabeth by Louis I., prince de Condé, leader of the Huguenots, and the command of it was entrusted to Ambrose Dudley, earl of Warwick; but the English were expelled in 1563, after a most obstinate siege, which was pressed forward by Charles IX. and his mother, Catherine de’ Medici, in person. The defences of the town and the harbour-works were continued by Richelieu and completed by Vauban. In 1694 it was vainly besieged by the English, who also bombarded it in 1759, 1794 and 1795. It was a port of considerable importance as early as 1572, and despatched vessels to the whale and cod-fishing at Spitsbergen and Newfoundland. In 1672 it became the entrepôt of the French East India Company, and afterwards of the Senegal and Guinea companies. Napoleon I. raised it to a war harbour of the first rank, and under Napoleon III. works begun by Louis XVI. were completed.
See A. E. Borely, Histoire de la ville du Havre (Le Havre, 1880–1881).
HAWAII (Hawaiian or Sandwich Islands), a Territory of
the United States of America, consisting of a chain of islands
in the North Pacific Ocean, eight inhabited and several uninhabited.
The inhabited islands lie between latitudes 18° 54′
and 22° 15′ N., and between longitudes 154° 50′ and 160° 30′ W.,
and extend about 380 m. from E.S.E. to W.N.W.; the uninhabited
ones, mere rocks and reefs, valuable only for their
guano deposits and shark-fishing grounds, continue the chain
several hundred miles farther W.N.W. From Honolulu, the
capital, which is about 100 m. N.W. of the middle of the inhabited
group, the distance to San Francisco is about 2100 m.; to
Auckland, New Zealand, about 3810 m.; to Sydney, New South
Wales, about 4410 m.; to Yokohama, about 3400 m.; to
Hong-Kong, about 4920 m.; to Manila, about 4890 m. The
total area of the inhabited islands is 6651 sq. m., distributed as
follows: Hawaii, 4210; Maui, 728; Oahu, about 600; Kauai,
547; Molokai, 261; Lanai, 139; Niihau, 97; Kahoolawe, 69.
All the islands are of volcanic origin, and have been built up by the eruptive process from a base about 15,000 ft. below the sea to a maximum height (Mauna Kea) on the largest island (Hawaii) of 13,823 ft. above the sea; altogether there are forty volcanic peaks. Evidence of slight upheaval is occasionally afforded by an elevated coral-reef along the shore, and evidence of the subsidence of the S. portion of Oahu for several hundred feet has been discovered by artesian borings through coral-rock. In some instances, notably the high and nearly vertical wall along the N. shore of the E. half of Molokai, there is evidence of a fracture followed by the submergence of a portion of a volcano. With the exception of the coral and a small amount of calcareous sandstone, the rocks are entirely volcanic and range from basalt to trachyte, but are mainly basalt. Cinder cones and tufa cones abound, but one of the most distinguishing features of the Hawaiian volcanoes is the great number of craters of the engulfment type, i.e. pit-craters which enlarge slowly by the breaking off and falling in of their walls, and discharge vast lava-flows with comparatively little violence. The age of the several inhabited islands, or at least the time since the last eruptions on them, decreases from W. to E., and on the most easterly (Hawaii) volcanic forces are still in operation. That those to the westward have long been inactive is shown by the destruction of craters by denudation, by deep ravines, valleys and tall cliffs eroded on the mountain sides, especially on the windward side, by the depth of soil formed from the disintegrated rocks, and by the amount as well as variety of vegetable life.
Hawaii Island, from which the group and later the Territory was named, has the shape of a rude triangle with sides of 90 m., 75 m. and 65 m. Its coast, unlike that of the other islands of the archipelago, has few coral reefs. Its surface consists mainly of the gentle slopes of five volcanic mountains which have encroached much upon one another by their eruptions.
Mauna Loa (“Great Mountain”), on the S., is by far the largest volcano in the world; from a base measuring at sea-level about 75 m. from N. to S. and 50 m. from E. to W., it rises gradually to a height of 13,675 ft. On its E.S.E. side, at an elevation of 4000 ft. above the sea (300 ft. above the adjoining plain on the W.) is Kilauea, from whose lava-flows the island has been extended to form its S.E. angle. To the N.N.E. of Mauna Loa, and blending with it in an intervening plateau, is Mauna Kea (“White Mountain,” so named from the snow on its summit), with a much smaller base but with steeper slopes and a crowning cinder cone 13,823 ft. above the sea, the maximum height in the Pacific Ocean; blending with Mauna Loa on the N.N.W. is Mauna Hualalai, 8269 ft. in height; and rising abruptly from the extreme N.W. shore are the remains of the oldest mountains of the island, the Kohala, with a summit 5505 ft. in height. On the land side the Kohala Mountains have been covered with lava from Mauna Kea, and form the broad plains of Kohala, having a maximum elevation of about 3000 ft.; on the ocean side, wherever this lava has not extended, erosion has gone on until bluffs 1000 ft. in height face the sea and the enormous gorges of Waipio and Waimanu, with nearly perpendicular walls as much as 3000 ft. high and extending inland 5-6 m., have been formed. Mauna Kea is not nearly so old as the Kohala Mountains, but there is no record of its eruption, nor have its lavas a modern aspect. The last eruption of Mauna Hualalai was in 1801. Mauna Loa and Kilauea are still active. Cinder cones are the predominant type of craters on both Mauna Kea and the Kohala Mountains, and they are also numerous on the upper slopes of Mauna Hualalai; but the more typically Hawaiian pit or engulfment craters also abound on Mauna Hualalai and Mokuaweoweo, crowning the summit of Mauna Loa, as well as Kilauea, to the S.E. of it, are prominent representatives of this type. Kilauea is the largest active crater in the world (8 m. in circumference) and is easily accessible. Enclosed by a circular wall from 200 to 700 ft. in height is a black and slightly undulating plain having an area of 4.14 sq. m., and within this plain is a pit, Halemaumau, of varying area (about 2000 ft. in diameter in 1905), now full of boiling lava, now empty to a depth of perhaps 1000 ft. When most active, Halemaumau affords a grand spectacle, especially at night: across the crust run glowing cracks, the crust is then broken into cakes, the cakes plunge beneath, lakes of liquid lava are formed, over whose surface play fire-fountains 10 to 50 ft. in height, the surface again solidifies and the process is repeated.[1] According to an account of the natives, a violent eruption of Kilauea occurred in 1789, or about that time, and deposits of volcanic sand, large stones, sponge-like scoria (pumice) and ashes for miles around are evidence of such an eruption. Since the Rev. William Ellis and a party of American missionaries first made the volcano known to the civilized
- ↑ Among the minor phenomena of Hawaiian volcanoes are the delicate glassy fibres called Pele’s hair by the Hawaiians, which are spun by the wind from the rising and falling drops of liquid lava, and blown over the edge or into the crevices of the crater. Pele in idolatrous times was the dreaded goddess of Kilauea.
