It sounds almost unbelievable, but in a daring escape, Englishman Mr. Watson walked on handmade stilts through a stream of molten lava at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, after becoming trapped between two lava flows.
Saved by Stilts From Lava Heat
Walking on stilts is hard enough at the best, even for the experts in southern France, who work in the marshes with them and whose equipment is as near perfection as may be, but to walk on an extemporized pair made out of ironwood with a pocket knife and to do the walking through a river of red hot lava is a feat that has occurred only once so far as records show.
The hero of it is an Englishman named Watson, who with a party was looking over the wonders of the great volcano Mauna Loa in the Sandwich Islands. They had spent the night on the edge of the crater, and next morning Mr. Watson wandered off alone to investigate the lava stream that flows down the southern side of the mountain.
Observed Scene Too Long
Reaching the stream, he sat down under the shelter of a promontory of rocks and gazed upon the great slow river of fire flowing before him. It followed a straight course down the mountains, while at some distance below it entered a thicket of trees which seemed as he watched it through his glass to have remarkable powers of resisting combustion from the red hot lava.
Mr. Watson lingered to watch this sight until almost noon, when he started to return to camp. As he turned, leaving the lava stream at his back, he saw another stream before him. Soon he perceived that he was caught between two lava streams, cutting him off from camp. While Watson had been sitting beneath the rock the stream of lava had widened, and the rock that sheltered him had divided it so that it was now floating down to his left as well as to his right.
Trapped by Fire Rivers
It occurred to Mr. Watson that he could go down to the streams and doubtless get around the head of the new one and so escape. But before he had gone so far he discovered that the new stream united with the old one a short distance father down the mountain. The Englishman was now on an island of solid ground with a river of fire all around him. He looked about him in despair, and as he did so his eyes fell on the patch of woods which he had already noticed as evidently possessing the property of resisting the fire in some way. He ran to this and saw that some of the trees were small.
Then, drawing a small knife from his pocket, he hewed with it at the base of one of the smaller trees, intending to make stilts on which to walk through the lava. It was ironwood and resisted his small knife blade almost like iron.
No Sleep for Him
By daybreak his stilts were ready. He mounted them and started straight through the lava stream. The stilts smoked and sizzled, but did not burn.
He was obliged to walk slowly and feel with the foot of each stilt for loose stones, for a fall would mean only one thing — instant cremation. Nor did he dare look anywhere but at the slowly moving lava, although his eyes nearly popped out of his head from the torturing heat.
He did not fall, and at last he came near the farther edge of the stream. There, to his great joy, he saw people awaiting him. His friends had come in search of him and, encountering the lava stream, had conjectured that he was beyond it.
Seeing him approaching, they met him at its edge. As he reached out to them one of his stilts burned entirely off, but as he fell he was caught and pulled to solid ground. He was severely but not fatally burned and in a rancher’s house received such care and surgical attention that he was soon able to start on his trip for home.
Source: Iron County record. (Cedar City, Utah), 01 Dec. 1911.
