When the world's largest active volcano erupted for the first time in nine years, it did so with spectacular fury. Fountains of fiery lava shot 400 ft. into the air from the 1½-mile-wide crater at the summit of Mauna Loa (13,677 ft.). The lava spilled down blackened mountain slopes in thick rivers of gleaming marigold fire, looking demonically magical, an apprentice sorcerer's wish for gold gone awry. At week's end the menacing wall had oozed to within four miles of Hawaii's second-largest city, Hilo, (pop. 35,000).
A second outbreak from a 6,000-ft.-wide fissure farther...
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