Crater of the Great Volcano of Kirauea. 5S 



This offset is formed wholly of scoria and lava, mostly burnt 

 to a cinder, and is every where intersected by deep crevices and 

 chasms, from many of which, light, vapour and smoke, and from 

 others, a scalding steam, are emitted. The general surface is a 

 black glossy incrustation, retaining perfectly the innumerably 

 diversified tortuous configurations of the lava, as it originally 

 cooled, and so brittle as to crack and break under us, like ice, 

 while the hollow reverberations of our footsteps beneath, suffi- 

 ciently assured us of the unsubstantial character of the whole 

 mass. In some places, by thrusting our sticks down with force, 

 large pieces would give way, disclosing fissures and holes ap- 

 parently without bottom. These, however, were generally too 

 small to appear dangerous. The width of this ledge is constant- 

 ly diminished, in a greater or less degree, by the faUing of large 

 masses from its edges into the crater ; and it is not impossible 

 that in some future convulsion of the mountain, the whole struc- 

 ture may yet be plunged into the abyss below. 



Leaving the sulphur banks on the eastern side behind us, 

 we directed our course under the northern to the western 

 cliffs. As we advanced, these became more and more perpen- 

 dicular, till they presented nothing but the bare and upright 

 face of an immense wall, from 800 to 1000 feet high, on whose 

 surface huge stones and rocks hung, apparently so loosely as to 

 threaten falling at the agitation of a breath. In many places, a 

 white curling vapour issued from the sides and summit of this 

 precipice, and in two or three others, streams of clay-coloured 

 lava, extending almost from the top to the bottom, had cooled in 

 the form of small cascades, evidently at a very recent period. 

 At every step something new attracted our attention, and hy 

 stopping sometimes to look up, not without a feeling of ap- 

 prehension, at the enormous masses over our heads — at others, 

 to gain, by a cautious approach to the brink of the gulf, a nearer 

 glance at the equally fearful depth below — at one time, turning 

 aside to ascertain the heat of a column of steam, and at another, 

 to secure some unique or beautiful specimen, we occupied more 

 than two hours, in proceeding the same number of miles. 



We then came to a spot, on the western side, where the ledge 

 widened many hundred feet, and terminated on the side next 

 the crater, not, as in most other places, perpendicularly, but in 

 a vast heap of broken cakes and. blocks of lava, loosely piled to« 



