Description: Map of the Hawaiian Islands, 1898. Scale in miles. "The Hawaiian Islands, which were annexed to the United States in August, 1898, lie in the Pacific Ocean, about two thousand miles southwest of San Francisco. The group consists of eight volcanic islands, besides several uninhabited rocky islets. The surface is mountainous, the only plains being along the seashore and in the valleys bordering the water courses. In the island of Hawaii the only active volcanoes are Mauna Kea, 13,805 feet high, and Kilauea, which is remarkable for its immense crater nine miles in circumference. The summits of the mountains on the other islands attain altitudes from 4,000 to 5,000 feet...Although this group is within the tropics, there is no other region in which the climate is uniformly so delightful. The temperature seldom falls below 54° or rises above 88°. There are but few cloudy days, the sky being almost always clear. The rainfall is much greater on the northeastern slope of the islands than elsewhere, but the average for the year in the entire group is only about 50 inches...Only a small portion of any of the islands is adapted to agriculture; but a remarkably fertile soil, exactly suited tot he growth of sugar cane, exists in some localities, covering all together an area equal to about one fortieth of the entire land surface of the group...Honolulu, the capital and principal port, is situated on the island of Oahu. Other important towns are Hilo in Hawaii, and Lahaina in Maui. On the north side of Molokai is a settlement to which all persons afflicted with leprosy are banished." — Redway, 1898.
Source: Jacques W. Redway and Russell Hinman, Natural Advanced Geography (New York, NY: American Book Company , 1898) 4
Map Credit: Courtesy the private collection of Roy Winkelman. |
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