1840.] DESCRIPTION OP THE CRATER. 363 



volume by an eruption, subsides again to its customary limits. 

 The pool is about fifteen hundred feet long, and one thousand 

 feet across. It is dangerous to descend from the black ledsre 

 to the border of the lake itself, although it has been done; for 

 the reason that the thin crust of lava, formed above, the glow- 

 ing furnace, sometimes gives way. The descent from the 

 outer bank to the black ledge is comparatively easy, as the 

 declivity is very gradual, and presents few obstructions. The 

 ground beneath is coated with a crust of vitreous or scoria- 

 ceous lava from half an inch to an inch thick. Below the 

 ledge there are many beautiful cones and jets of hardened lava 

 scattered about in different positions. Suspended over the 

 blazing pool, in mid air, is a cloud of vapor, by day assuming 

 a silvery appearance, and by night resembling a sea of lire. 



The pool or lake undergoes frequent changes on its sur- 

 face. Besides rising and falling, as has been mentioned, some- 

 times a great number of cones start up from the midst of the 

 liquid mass, and like miniature volcanoes eject red-hot stones, 

 and streams of smoke and flame ; then all at once they are 

 silenced, and crumble down into the lake from which they 

 had risen, while its fiery waves sweep away every trace of 

 their existence. But whatever be its condition, and in what- 

 ever aspect it is observed, the beholder is startled by the 

 grandeur and sublimity of the scene; and the unearthly 

 sounds that meet his ear, as if the whole brood of Cyclops 

 were thundering at their subterranean forges, serve to 

 heighten the emotions that steal upon him. " The fiercely 

 whizzing sound of gas and steam," says Mr. Bingham, 

 "rushing with varying force, through obstructed apertures in 

 blowing cones, or cooling crusts of lava, — the laboring, wheez- 

 ing, struggling as of a living mountain, breathing fire and 

 smoke and sulphurous gas from lurid nostrils, tossing up 

 molten rooks or detached portions of fluid lava, and breaking 

 up vast indurated masses with varied detonations, — all im- 

 pressively bade us stand in awe."* 



(2.) When the Sandwich Islands were first discovered, it 



* Bingham's Sandwich Island*, pp. 387, 388. 



