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country called the * Pays brûlé? commences. From the 
* Rempart de Tremblet’ we had a full view of it, stretching 
across to the ‘ Rempart de Bois Blanc,’ and up to the dome 
of the voleano. The complexion of this dreary expanse is 
as varied as the periods at which the eruptions took place 
which covered it with lava. In many parts, the lava still 
retains the vitreous appearance it had acquired by fusion. 
In others, the surface is sprinkled over with a small shrubby 
Lichen, which gives it a hoary appearance; and in the fissures 
and crevices a variety of Ferns spring up, intermixed with 
shrubby plants, among which I remarked the Rubus rose- 
Jolius, Andromeda salicifolia, Scevola Kenigii, Pemphis 
acidula, and Pandanus Vacqua, the two last close to the 
shore, and literally washed by the spray. A few spots that 
had escaped the later eruptions are clothed with trees, and 
appear like Oases in the desert. 
“ The lava that has undergone complete fusion is as black 
as jet, extremely porous, and holds numerous crystals of 
olivine enveloped in its substance. The layer is, in many 
Parts, not more than a few inches in thickness; and its 
surface is distorted into a variety of fantastic shapes, mimick- 
mg coils of rope, the convolutions of intestines, or the 
sinuosities of the brain. It appears as if the lava, while in 
a semifluid state, had been puffed up by the rarified moisture 
9f the ground over which it had spread; and that the more 
liquid, or central part, had receded to the circumference, and 
raised the still yielding crust into these irregular contortions. 
A person runs some risk in walking over this sort of lava, 
on account of its fragility, and the numerous cavities 
underneath it, into which he is liable to sink as he would 
through ice, 
“From the appearance of this sheet-lava, as it may be 
termed, it is hardly possible that it could have been dis- 
; from the summit of the mountain, or from any 
Considerable height on its side. It could not preserve its 
uidity in passing over such an extent of surface; besides 
t we find it spread like a carpet over large tracts of 
utely level ground, where its progress must have been 
