538 Transactions. — Geology. 



point. Every day you may see the women there cooking 

 their yams and other vegetables, in hollow places dug out, 

 and which form a series of never-failing boiling-pots. The 

 men and boys have only to stand on the rocks, spear their 

 fish, and pitch them into the hot spring.* Beyond this 

 mountain, and about five miles from the anchorage, stands 

 the cone of the volcano. The black sandy dust and 

 cinders from the crater form a barren valley about a 

 mile wide all round the base of the mountain v^hich 

 forms the crater. In crossing the valley one day we 

 felt our walking-sticks going down among something soft, 

 and, on looking round, found it to be a beautiful bed of 

 sulphur, yellovv as gold. Not far from the same place the 

 fumes of sulphur were so strong from some fissures that we 

 could not go near them. Near the base of the mountain we 

 found some masses of a clayey substance, hard and in some 

 places burning hot. From cracks here and thei'e the steam 

 and boiling water came up as from an immense boiler. But 

 what most astonished us at this place was a steady drop, 

 drop, dropping of water, quite cold, and clear as crystal, from 

 a fissure within a few feet of another crack which was send- 

 ing forth a blast of air so hot that we could not bear the hand 

 near it for two seconds. It is the same at the hot springs 

 already referred to. You can boil yams at one place, and 

 within 5 yards of it get a glass of cool fresh water. The 

 ascent up the mountain to the edge of the cup is a gradual 

 slope, but the walking is laborious, as you sink to the ankles 

 at every step in the fine dark-grey dust or sand which has ac- 

 cumulated from the eruptions of the volcano. The perpen- 

 dicular height of the crater from the valley at its base is 

 almost 300 ft. When you reach the edge of the cup you see 

 that it is oblong and curved rather than circular, and about a 

 mile and a half in circumference. On reaching the top and 

 looking over the edge you expect to see the boiling lava, but 

 instead of that the great cup contains five other smaller cups 

 or outlets, separated from each other by ridges of dark sand. 

 To see the boilmg lava you would require to go down inside 

 the outer cup, and then up one of these interior ridges. 

 "Were it solid rock the attempt might be made, but from the 

 fragile sandy appearance of these smaller ridges it seems as if 

 it would be sure to slip, and down you go. Then, again, you 

 never know the moment there is to be an eruption, nor do you 

 know from which of the five outlets it is to come. I felt no 



* We cou'd almost fancy that Mr. Turner was writing upon the 

 phenompna and the custom of the natives of our own hot-lakes district 

 in New Zealand. So near to each other are the New Hebrides and New 

 Zealand, so similar are the phenomena, that 1 think Mr. McKay must 

 admit some connection in tlie line of volcanic strength. 



