Economy | Page 169 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

September 28, 2017 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Chinese University of Hawai‘i

“The Chinese Hawaiian baseball team proved conclusively that they had the University Wildcats outclassed in every department when they took the second of a series of two games by a score of ten to two here today.” (Bisbee Daily News, March 24, 1915)

The exact wording may not be the same, but the message was: from 1912-1916, newspapers all across the continent shared the similar news – the Chinese University of Hawai‘i squad was the team to beat – but most couldn’t.

Mainland media tell part of the story … “The faculty and also the board of directors of the Chinese university of Hawaii have given permission to the baseball team of the institution to tour the United States in 1913.”

“A cable message was immediately sent to Nat C Strong in New York and he will arrange the schedule. It is expected the Chinese team will play Yale, Harvard and Princeton next year.” (Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, Pennsylvania, November 5, 1912)

“Mr Strong is an exceptionally active man in his line of work. He is the man who booked all the games for the Chinese baseball team, now playing on the coast, since June.”

“Because of the fact that the Chinese baseball boys now on the mainland have been such a good drawing card everywhere. Mr Strong has already secured seventy games for the All-Chinese aggregation should they decide to tour the United States again next year.” (Star-bulletin, September 28, 1912)

“The baseball team of the Chinese University of Hawai‘i will sail tomorrow for San Francisco, to begin a tour of the United States. After a few coast matches the team will go east, ending its schedule with a series of games with New England colleges the latter part of June.”

“The tour will comprise approximately 50,000 miles. The party will include fifteen prayers and will be in charge of Captain Akana. Nearly all of the players were members of the team which made a similar tour of the United States last year.” (Bismarck Daily, March 18, 1913)

“Supported by Chinatown business interests in Honolulu, as well as the Hawaiian Merchants and Advertiser’s Club of Honolulu, a baseball team of Chinese Americans was dispatched in 1912 to the mainland.”

“The nine’s backers hoped the athletes would pump up mainland tourism and investments in the Islands, as well as erect a cultural bridge between European Americans and Chinese Americans.”

“The 1912 and 1913 squads largely consisted of players of Chinese ancestry, although several athletes such as Buck Lai Tin, Vernon Ayau, Ken Yen Chun, Apau Kau and Land Akana also possessed indigenous Hawaiian and haole backgrounds.” (Franks)

“In subsequent years, the team became more ethnically diverse, but essentially remained Asian Pacific Islander. Thus by 1914, the team fielded several players possessing Japanese and indigenous Hawaiian ancestry.” (Franks)

In 1915, “arrangements have been completed for the famous All-Chinese baseball team of Honolulu, which was so successful against the leading American College clubs on its tour of the United States last year, to come to Shanghai and take part in the series for the open baseball championship of the Far East.”

They needed to raise $5,000 for expenses. Chinese President Yuan Shih-kai sent a letter of support, “stating the president’s hearty approval of the effort to popularize baseball in China as a suitable outdoor sport for Chinese youth …”

“… and the president also sent his check for $500 as a personal contribution towards the expenses of bringing out the All-Chinese baseball team from Honolulu, which he believes will do much to stimulate interest in the game among Chinese.” (Star Bulletin, April 8, 1915)

Furthermore, “Under the patronage of the Chinese government and with the personal assistance of Wu Tang-fang, former Chinese minister to the United States, a baseball team of American-born Chinese is on its way to Shanghai on the steamer Mongolia, by way of the Philippines and Japan.”

“Their expenses in China will be met by the Chinese Government. The team will tour the (principal) cities of the interior to introduce American athletics for the physical improvement of the youth of China.” (Columbus Weekly Advocate, April 15, 1915)

“Sixteen games were played in all during the trip to the Philippines and China, and of these 12 were won, three lost and one tied.”

“In Peking the president of China gave us a reception, and talked to us for about five minutes. We received special permission
to visit the old royal residence, and altogether were treated as distinguished guests.” (Star-Bulletin, June 22, 1915)

Back in the Islands, “The local press initially called the nine the All-Chinese but eventually took to referring to the Hawaiian ballplayers as the Travelers, the Hawaiian Travelers, or the Chinese Travelers.” (Franks)

However, “The young ballplayers crisscrossing the Pacific to the mainland did not go to the ‘Chinese University of Hawai‘i.’ There was no such institution. It was the concoction by one or more of the Hawaiian promoters of the trip.” (Franks)

The team’s management encouraged the fiction that baseball fans at Stanford and Penn State were watching a college team in action.

The team management wanted to schedule college teams and believed do so would be impossible unless mainland colleges were persuaded that the Hawaiian visitors represented a college. (Franks)

There was no ‘University of Hawai‘i’ in the Islands until 1920. When it was authorized in 1907, it was known as the ‘College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts of the Territory of Hawai‘i.’ In 1911, the name of the school was changed to the “College of Hawaiʻi.”

And, it wasn’t until 1917, after the Chinese Hawaiians stopped playing their mainland games, that the College of Hawaiʻi had its first baseball team, when an interclass game was played between the Aggies and Engineers (the Aggies won.)

With the addition of the College of Arts and Sciences in 1920, the school became known as the University of Hawaiʻi. The Territorial Normal and Training School (now the College of Education) joined the University in 1931.

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Chinese University of Hawaii played Rice Institute-Rice

Chinese American baseball team from Hawaii-LOC

William ‘Buck’ Tin Lai; aka Lai Tin on 1914 Chinese team-LOC

Lang Akana, captain and first baseman, Chinese university-LOC

Columbia_-_Capt._Friedrichs;_Hawaii_-_Capt._Akana_(Chinese)-(LOC)

Chinese American baseball team tour of US-1913-LOC-under 2M

September 27, 2017 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Yuimaaru

Yuimaaru is seen when communities support one another, especially in times of need. It is a reminder for all of us to live yuimaaru, in both small and big endeavors and decisions. (Haworth)

Uchinanchu is the term used by Okinawan immigrants and their descendants in Hawai‘i to identify themselves as an ethnic group distinct from the Naichi of Japan’s four main islands. Seven such were …

… Ryoshin Agena (native of Uruma City,) Yasuo Uezu (native of Uruma City,) Shinei Shimabukuro (native of Uruma City,) Yoshio Yamashiro (native of Uruma City,) Genbi Tonaki (native of Nanjo City,) Ushikichi Nakama (native of Itoman City) and Shohei Miyazato (native of the town of Motobu)

They are also referred to as the ‘seven heroes’ – a monument and musical, Umi Kara Buta ga Yatte Kita (Pigs from the Sea,) commemorate them.

Uruma City Mayor Toshio Shimabukuro commented, “We would like to show the bond between Hawai‘i and Uchinanchu to future generations through the monument and the musical performance.” (Ryukyu Shimpo)

Okinawa is located approximately 350 miles south of mainland Japan. It is the largest island in the Ryukyu Island chain, the southernmost prefecture of the then-Japanese Empire.

In WWII, the Pacific campaign started December 7, 1941 after the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. The campaign crossed all over the Pacific; the Japanese initially had the upper hand in the air and on sea and land.

After almost 4 years of naval, air, and land battles the tide had turned and by March 1945 the campaign had nearly reached its culminating point with American domination of the sea and air. It was now just Japanese territory that needed to be seized before the Japanese would admit defeat.

In a time when an invasion of mainland Japan was necessary to end the war, Okinawa was an essential preparation ground and jumping-off point for the impending invasion. (SSgt Frame)

The bombardment of Okinawa commenced on March 23, 1945 and lasted until the morning of the land invasion (codenamed Operation Iceberg) on April 1.

On June 23, 1945, all major combat operations ended on the island of Okinawa. Over the 3-month battle more than 8- million artillery and mortar rounds were fired, the equivalent of more than 1-round per second.

More than 12,000-American servicemembers were killed and more than 38,000-wounded or missing. The Japanese military lost more than 110,000, but the greatest loss of life by the Okinawan people.

Anywhere from 40,000 to 150,000 of the Okinawans perished during the battle. Even with all the carnage, it was at Okinawa that the largest number of Japanese soldiers were taken prisoner (more than 7,000 – an unprecedented number). (SSgt Frame)

“The ravages of the Pacific War (of WWII) brought disaster and catastrophic damage to the island of Okinawa. Under these harsh conditions, the people of the island were forced to eke out a living, even as they struggled to find food amidst the scorched landscape.”

“An indispensable source of food, Okinawa contained over 100,000 pigs in the prewar period. After the war, this number had plummeted to just 7,731 (according to the Ryukyu Government’s 1946 records), leaving Okinawa in a dire situation.” (Monument Text)

The above named seven Uchinanchu (Okinawan immigrants) stepped forward to help those from their homeland. They raised over $47,000 from Hawai‘i’s Uchinanchu community, purchased 550 pigs in Oregon and took them to Okinawa after World War II.

The ship that they contracted for the journey was called the USS John Owen; it departed for Okinawa on August 31, 1948, and the voyage became a life and death struggle as the ship was assaulted by raging storms and battered by tall waves.

The journey was further delayed by the need to take a roundabout route in order to avoid sea mines left over from the war. By the 3 week mark, the passenger’s water supply and the feed for the pigs was almost completely depleted.

After 28 grueling days at sea, the passengers finally caught sight of the Okinawan islands on September 27. The Owen made landfall on White Beach, in the Katsuren Heshikiya region of Uruma City. (Okinawa-jp)

These pigs helped revive the Okinawan pig farming industry and were a source of nourishment for the Okinawan people, who were starving in the aftermath of the war.

The pigs, which are easy to breed because of their high fertility rate, are believed to have helped ward off starvation and provided a steady food source for many Okinawans. (Japan Times)

This movement which began in Hawai‘i eventually spread to the American mainland and South America, and in time aid began to pour into Okinawa from all across the globe. (Okinawa-jp)

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Hawaii Pigs arriving at Okinawa

7 from Hawaii who brought pigs

Pigs from the Sea-Memorial

Pigs from the Sea Memorial

September 25, 2017 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Kōloa Landing

Hawaiians along the Kōloa shore were the first to see the white man in Hawaiʻi. It was in 1778, along Kauai’s South Shore, that Captain James Cook first traveled, landed and made “contact”, introducing Hawaiʻi to the rest of the world.

Cook named the archipelago the Sandwich Islands in honor of his patron, the First Lord of the Admiralty, the Earl of Sandwich. Cook’s crew first sighted the Hawaiian Islands in the dawn hours of January 18, 1778.

His two ships, the HMS Resolution and the HMS Discovery, were kept at bay by the weather until the next day when they approached Kauai’s southeast coast.

On the afternoon of January 19, native Hawaiians in canoes paddled out to meet Cook’s ships, and so began Hawai‘i’s contact with Westerners. The first Hawaiians to greet Cook were from the Kōloa shore.

The Hawaiians traded fish and sweet potatoes for pieces of iron and brass that were lowered down from Cook’s ships to the Hawaiians’ canoes. Cook continued to sail along the coast searching for a suitable anchorage.

His two ships remained offshore, but a few Hawaiians were allowed to come on board on the morning of January 20, before Cook continued on in search of a safe harbor.

As they stepped ashore for the first time, Cook and his men were greeted by hundreds of Hawaiians who offered gifts of pua‘a (pigs), and mai‘a (bananas) and kapa (tapa) barkcloth.

Cook went ashore at Waimea three times the next day, walking inland to where he saw Hawaiian hale (houses), heiau (sacred places of worship), and agricultural sites.

At the time, the region was thriving with many thatched homes as well as lo‘i kalo (taro patches) and various other food crops such as niu (coconuts) and ‘ulu (breadfruit).

After trading for provisions, gathering water and reading for sail, Cook left the island and continued his search of the “Northwest Passage,” an elusive (because it was non‐existent) route from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean.

From the time of contact, until the end of the century, ships called at Waimea nearly every year for water and provisions. For a time, it was the favored port of call on the island.

However, captains learned that the exposed anchorage at Waimea was dangerous with ‘kona’ winds came up ((south‐westerly, versus the typical north‐easterly tradewinds,) threatening to ground the moored ships.

Ultimately, it was this occasional weather pattern that caused the decline of Waimea as the favored port on the Island of Kauai and the rise of Kōloa Landing to take its place.

Goods and people were transferred by hand and small boat to ships in Hanakaʻape Bay. The cove is at the mouth of the Waikomo (entering water) Stream on Hanakaʻape (headstrong) Bay.

Between about 1810 and 1820, the major item of Hawaiian trade was sandalwood. King Kaumualiʻi held the sandalwood monopoly on Kauai and Niʻihau, Kōloa Landing served as a prominent port of export. Kamehameha I held the monopoly for the rest of the island chain.

Ships calling to Kōloa Landing steadily increased and by 1830 it became widely recognized as the major port on the island. Ships had the ability to maneuver in and out of the anchorage, whatever the wind direction.

Whalers, seeking water and food supplies, called at Kōloa Landing, the Island’s foremost port. Kōloa was a center for agriculture and, as such, became the center of activity for Kauai. The whaling industry was the mainstay of the islands’ economy for about 40 years.

Likewise, Kōloa Landing was situated near a source of good water, near crops grown in the Kōloa field system, close to salt beds and had an abundance of firewood and beef from mauka regions.

In the mid-1800s, Kōloa Landing was the third largest whaling port in all of Hawai‘i (behind Honolulu and Lāhainā) and the only port of entry for foreign goods.

The first commercially‐viable sugar plantation, Ladd and Co., was started at Kōloa on Kauai. On July 29, 1835, Ladd & Company obtained a 50‐year lease on nearly 1,000‐acres of land and established a plantation and mill site in Kōloa.

It was to change the face of Kauai (and Hawai‘i) forever, launching an entire economy, lifestyle and practice of mono-cropping that lasted for over a century. A tribute to this venture is found at the Kōloa Sugar Memorial in Old Kōloa Town,

Traveling salesmen, also known as drummers (‘drumming up business,’) who worked for large mercantile agencies on O‘ahu would arrive at Kōloa Landing after an often rugged ocean trip by steamer and rowboat.

The would take their samples to each plantation camp store and sometimes even fan out from house to house in outlying communities.

Kōloa Landing was the trans‐shipment point from which ships were off‐loaded with mercantile goods and livestock for Kauai, and where trade‐goods, fresh produce and livestock were loaded on ships from Kauai. It was also linked to Kōloa Town, two miles inland, by the purveyor’s cart path (Hapa Road.)

Shipping in and out of Koloa Landing increased until 1912 (up to 60 ships a year anchored there to stock provisions and take on passengers.) However, better facilities became available at Nāwiliwili and Port Allen.

The landing left and Hanakaʻape Bay is now a popular dive site, especially for SCUBA instruction. Further out is an offshore reef that provides several surf breaks that are quite popular with local surfers.

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Hanakaape_Bay-Koloa_Landing-Ships-1898

Koloa-Landing-1880

Hanakaape_Bay-Koloa_Landing-GoogleEarth

Hanakaape_Bay-Koloa_Landing

Koloa Landing-akamaidivers-com

Koloa_Landing_and_Makahuena_Point-USGS-1926-portion

September 24, 2017 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Settlement & Agricultural Development

Folks describe different ‘phases’ or ‘periods’ of human settlement and agricultural development in the Islands over time. Different people use different terms for each of these (some use varying timeframes, as well,) but they seem to generally fall into Settlement, Development, Expansion and ultimately Post-Contact.

Settlement – AD 1000-1400

It is believed that initial Polynesian discovery and settlement of the Hawaiian Islands occurred between approximately AD 1000 and 1200. (Kirch) This effectively started the ‘Settlement’ phase.

The rich valley bottoms which later they would clear, terrace, and irrigate for wet-taro cultivation, were in their pristine state, dense jungle, probably covered mostly with the hau shrub which, where it runs wild, produces a dense, tight jungle. For this jungle the first settlers had no use.

What taro tops they had, they planted along the banks of the streams, as taro is still planted along the banks of irrigation and drainage ditches. If they had sweet-potato shoots, these were planted in sandy soil near their huts.

It is more likely, however, that the first settlers had little or nothing to plant. The plants and more settlers were probably brought by canoes sent back to the homeland.

For generations, the small, slowly growing population clustered around shore sites near streams that supplied them with water. Such sites are best for inshore fishing.

Fishermen and their families living around the bays and the beaches, or at isolated localities along the coast where fishing was practicable, led a life that was materially simpler than that of planters who dwelt on the plains.

The food plants of Hawaiʻi can be divided into three groups: those known as staple foods (the principal starchy foods – kalo (taro,) ʻuala (sweet potato,) ʻulu (breadfruit,) etc;) those of less importance (to add nutrients and variety to the diet;) and those known as famine foods. (Krauss)

With such a small (but growing) population based on the family unit, society was not so complicated that it needed chiefs to govern or oversee the general population.

Kamakau states that there were no chiefs in the earliest period of settlement but that they came “several hundred years afterward … when men became numerous.”

Development – AD 1400-1650

As the ancient Hawaiian population grew, land use and resource management also evolved. The traditional land use in the Hawaiian Islands evolved from shifting cultivation into a stable form of agriculture.

Stabilization required a new form of land use and eventually the ahupua‘a form of land management was instituted (what we generally refer to as watersheds, today.) Ahupuaʻa served as a means of managing people.

In addition, this centralization of government allowed for development and maintenance of large projects, such as irrigation systems, large taro loʻi, large fish ponds, heiau and trails.

To feed more people, farming became more developed and intensified. Only in Hawaiʻi was there such an intensive effort to utilize practically every body of water, from seashore to upland forests, as a source of food, for either agriculture or aquaculture.

Hawaiians built rock-walled enclosures in near shore waters, to raise fish for their communities and families. It is believed these were first built around the fifteenth century.

The ancient Hawaiian fishpond is a sophisticated land and ocean resource management technique. Utilizing raw materials such as rocks, corals, vines and woods, the Hawaiians created great walls (kuapā) and gates (mākāhā) for these fishponds. (Kelly)

Another technological invention by Hawaiian Polynesians was the development of their extended stone-faced, terraced pondfields (lo‘i) and their accompanying irrigation systems (‘auwai) for the intensive cultivation of wetland taro (kalo.)

The terraces were irrigated with water brought in ditches from springs and streams high in the valleys, allowing extensive areas of the valleys to be cultivated. The irrigation ditches and pondfields were engineered to allow the cool water to circulate among the taro plants and from terrace to terrace, avoiding stagnation and overheating by the sun, which would rot the taro tubers.

An acre of irrigated lo‘I kalo produced as much as five times the amount of taro as an acre of dryland cultivation. Over a period of several years, irrigated pondfields could be as much as 10 or 15 times more productive than unirrigated taro gardens, as dryland gardens need to lie fallow for greater lengths of time thin irrigated gardens. (Kelly)

There was systematic cultivation of dryland crops in their appropriate vegetation zones as exemplified by the Field Systems (notable systems are seen in Kona, Kohala, Kaupō, Kalaupapa and Ka‘ū.) (Kelly)

This was a period of tremendous significance in Hawaiian pre-contact history since, during this time, (1) the population underwent a geometric rate of increase; (2) virtually all habitable and arable lands were occupied and territorially claimed; (3) the territorial pattern of chiefdom (moku) and subchiefdom units (ahupua‘a) appears to have been established …

… and (4) toward the end of this period the Hawaiian sociopolitical system was transformed from a simple, ancestral Polynesian chiefdom to a highly stratified society with virtual class differentiation between chiefs and commoners. (Kirch)

Expansion – AD 1650-Contact (1778)

A population peak (usually estimated at several hundred thousand) was reached around 1650 AD, more than 100 years before contact with Europeans.

It was at this population peak, or shortly before, that Hawaiians began to inhabit less favorable coastline areas and barren zones between the coast and upland agricultural sites and to develop extensive dryland agricultural systems in marginal regions. (Cuddihy)

Large-scale irrigation works and permanent field systems were developed during the expansion period. Settlements were intruding into increasingly marginal environments, including the interiors of leeward valleys and the higher elevation slopes. Population densities in the fertile windward valleys increased, although densities in tablelands and elsewhere were much lower.

Cultivation was characterized by a variety of non-irrigated root and tree crops grown for subsistence, each farmer having gardens in one or more vegetation zones. Each crop was cultivated in the zone in which it grew best.

Reverend William Ellis described the area behind Kailua town in Kona above the breadfruit and mountain apple trees as, “The path now lay through a beautiful part of the country, quite a garden compared with that through which they had passed on first leaving the town.”

“It was generally divided into small fields, about fifteen rods square fenced with low stone walls, built with fragments of lava gathered from the surface of the enclosures. These fields were planted with bananas, sweet potatoes, mountain taro, paper mulberry plants, melons, and sugar-cane, which flourished luxuriantly in every direction.”

There was extensive development of at least the mauka portion of the kula sub-zone, for sweet potatoes, wauke and probably also gourds. This development was accompanied rarely by permanent habitation and more often by temporary and seasonal habitation along the kula gardens.

Animal enclosures, probably for pigs, may date to this phase. The upland zones were under complete development by this time. Suitable caves were modified for refuge during times of warfare or social conflict. Caves located in the midst of garden features were intensively used for temporary shelter and work spaces. (Terry)

Post Contact – After 1778

At the time of Captain Cook’s arrival (1778-1779), the Hawaiian Islands were divided into four chiefdoms: (1) the island of Hawaiʻi under the rule of Kalaniʻōpuʻu, who also had possession of the Hāna district of east Maui; (2) Maui (except the Hāna district,) Molokaʻi, Lānaʻi and Kahoʻolawe, ruled by Kahekili; (3) Oʻahu, under the rule of Kahahana; and (4) Kauaʻi and Niʻihau, Kamakahelei was ruler.

Island rulers, Aliʻi or Mōʻī, typically ascended to power through familial succession and warfare. In those wars, Hawaiians were killing Hawaiians; sometimes the rivalries pitted members of the same family against each other.

“It is supposed that some six thousand of the followers of this chieftain (Kamehameha,) and twice that number of his opposers, fell in battle during his career, and by famine and distress occasioned by his wars and devastations from 1780 to 1796.” (Bingham)

In addition to deaths in wars, epidemics of infections added to the decline in Hawaiʻi’s population from approximately 300,000 at the time of Captain Cook’s arrival in 1778 to 135,000 in 1820 and 53,900 in 1876.

Vancouver was appalled by the impoverished circumstances of the people and the barren and uncultivated appearance of their lands. “The deplorable condition to which they had been reduced by an eleven years war” and the advent of “the half famished trading vessels” convinced him that he should pursue his peace negotiations for “the general happiness, of the inhabitants of all the islands.” (Vancouver, Voyage 2)

“By this time nearly a generation of the race had passed away, subsequently to their discovery by Cook. How much of their strength had been exhausted by wars and the support of armies, and how much by new and terrible diseases, it is not easy to estimate. The population was greatly diminished, and the residue unimproved in morals.” (Bingham)

The cultivation of kula lands gradually decreased in extent and intensity, nevertheless remaining important to a decreasing population. Some kula lands were being converted to grazing beginning in the 1840s.

The first commercially-viable sugar plantation, Ladd and Co., was started at Kōloa on Kaua‘i. On July 29, 1835, Ladd & Company obtained a 50-year lease on nearly 1,000-acres of land and established a plantation and mill site in Kōloa.

At the industry’s peak in the 1930s, Hawaii’s sugar plantations employed more than 50,000 workers and produced more than 1-million tons of sugar a year; over 254,500-acres were planted in sugar. That plummeted to 492,000 tons in 1995.

Although sugar dominated the Hawaiian economy, there was also great demand at the time for fresh Hawaiian pineapples, and later canned pineapple. By 1931, pineapple production exceeded 12 million cases as a result of both expansion and improvements in productivity; production of canned pineapple peaked in 1957.

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c. 1826 lithograph, William Ellis C., Big Island. Waipio Valley, Ahupua’a.

Fish_Ponds_at_Honoruru,_Oahu,_by_John_Murray,_after_Robert_Dampier-(WC)-1836

P-03-View of Country back of Kailua

Native_Hawaiian_man_pounding_taro_into_poi_with_two_children_by_his_sides-(WC)-c._1890s

Oahu-Kahaluu-kalo-terrace-wall-(WC)

Water from the ‘auwai going back to the kahawai-(KSBE)

Wailau-terraces_walls (Windy K McElroy)

Ruins of Ancient Loi Kalo (Taro Pond Fields in Lanai)-(lanaichc-org)-1912

Kona_Field_System-GoogleEarth

Kohala Field System-photo-Vitousek

Interior fish pond Waikiki Oahu-1905

Honolulu_Harbor_to_Diamond_Head-Wall-Reg1690 (1893)

Hawaii_Island_Fishpond_Gate-(WC)

Fishpond_in_east_Molokai-(WC)

September 21, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Pendulum Peak

Early pendulum experiments helped calculate the force of gravity. By taking different readings at different locations across the planet, it is possible to calculate the contours of the earth, as well as the density of the interior. (A later Foucault pendulum was used to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth.)

Lt Charles Wilkes, as part of the US Exploring Expedition, came to Hawai‘i in 1840 with a 68-inch long pendulum and a pendulum clock. After suspending the pendulum from a tripod, he set up the pendulum clock nearby.

Both the clock and pendulum were swung – since they had different lengths, they swung at different rates. Every so often, they would coincide. Observing the pendulums through a telescope, he would record the time of the coincidence.

Over time, enough data was accumulated to determine the duration of a single swing of the pendulum. With the time and the length of the pendulum, he was able to calculate the force of gravity. (Philbrick)

Just after new year’s in 1841, Wilkes conducted pendulum observations on the top of Mauna Loa, at a site they named Pendulum Peak.

In the days before Christmas, with temperatures in the teens, and “water in the bags, under my pillow, froze,) “it blew a perfect hurricane for several hours, causing an incessant slamming, banging, and flapping of the tents, as though hundreds of persons were beating them with clubs”.

At other times, “at sunset, we had a beautiful appearance of the shadow of the mountain, dome-shaped, projected on the eastern sky: the colour of a light amethyst at the edges, increasing in intensity to a dark purple in the centre; it was as distinct as possible, and the vast dome seemed to rest on the distant horizon.”

“The night was clear, with moonlight, the effect of which on the scene was beautiful: the clouds floating below us, with the horizon above them, reminded us of the ice bergs and ice-fields of the Antarctic: the temperature lent its aid to the deception.”

“The 3d proved fine, and the pendulum-clock and apparatus being arranged and adjusted, the clock was put in motion, and a comparison made with the three chronometers every two hours.”

They made other observations, as well, “During our stay on the summit, we took much pleasure and interest in watching the various movements of the clouds; this day in particular they attracted our attention; the whole island beneath us was covered with a dense white mass, in the centre of which was the cloud of the volcano rising like an immense dome.”

“All was motionless, until the hour arrived when the sea-breeze set in from the different sides of the island: a motion was then seen in the clouds at the opposite extremities, both of which seemed apparently moving towards the same centre, in undulations …”

“… until they became quite compact, and so contracted in space as to enable us to see a well-defined horizon; at the same time, there was a wind from the mountain, at right angles, that was affecting the mass, and driving it asunder in the opposite direction.”

“The play of these masses was at times in circular orbits, as they became influenced alternately by the different forces, until the whole was passing to and from the centre in every direction, assuming every variety of form, shape, and motion.”

“(T)he outward variation (in temperature) still continued from 17° to 50° during the twenty-four hours.”

“On the 8th, we had a change to cold, raw, and disagreeable weather; snow began to fall, and a kona or southwest gale set in; the temperature fell soon to 20°.”

“At 10 pm, I was unable to proceed with the pendulum observations; for such was the fury of the storm, that the journeyman-clock, with a loud beat, although within three feet of my ear, could not be heard. I was indeed apprehensive that the whole tent, house, and apparatus would be blown over and destroyed.”

“This storm continued until sunrise of the 9th, when it moderated. I have seldom experienced so strong a wind; it blew over and broke one of the barometers, although its legs had been guarded carefully by large stones; and the wind was so violent at times, that it was with difficulty we could keep our footing.”

“On the 10th of January, we had snow again. The temperature rose to 32°: the snow melted fast, causing excessive dampness within and without, while other discomforts that may be imagined prevailed.”

“On the 11th, having the eprouvette mortar (a small cannon) with me, I tried some experiments on the velocity of sound, comparing it with our measured bases and the sides of the triangles: these gave results as satisfactory … The great difference was in the sound itself: the report of the gun producing a kind of hissing noise.”

“The eprouvette was of iron, and was fired with a plug driven into it very tightly after it was loaded. When fired near the level of the sea, it was necessary to close the ears when standing within twenty feet of it. The sound could be heard six miles, and the report was equal to that of a large gun.”

“But on the summit we stood close to it without any precaution whatever, and the noise it there made was more like that of a squib (a small firework that burns with a hissing sound before exploding.) … This night we finished the pendulum, and all the dip and intensity observations”.

“When day broke, on the 13th January, all was bustle on the summit of Mauna Loa. Every one was engaged in taking down and packing up the instruments and equipage, loaded with which the native labourers scampered off.”

“Previous to our departure, I had the words ‘Pendulum Peak, January 1841,’ cut in the lava within our village. JG Clarke, one of the seamen belonging to the Vincennes, who made these marks came to me and desired, on the part of the men, that I would allow them to add to it US Ex Ex, in order that there might be no mistake as to who had been there; to this I readily gave my consent.”

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