686 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of two brooks, one bringing warm water from the mountains and the 

 other cold water from springs, where we may take our choice between 

 the temperatures, or of a mixture of the two, or between a douche and 

 a plunge-bath, and for our final start to the boiling lake. There are 

 two bodies of standing water on the island : one is called the fresh- 

 water lake, and is cold ; while, though lying at a considerable height 

 above the sea, and probably occupying an extinct crater, it is less 

 remarkable for its geological features than for the beauty of its sur- 

 roundings. The other, the "Boiling Lake," is the object of our excur- 

 sion. Soon we entered upon a dark wood of painful grandeur. The 

 trees were so large and tall that we were not able with the naked eye 

 to distinguish the forms of the leaves, the flowers, or the fruit upon a 

 single one of them. Even our guns could not reach the atmospheric 

 vegetation, and we had to content ourselves with the examination of 

 casual fallen specimens, or with pulling at the ropy air-roots of the 

 clusias, when the pouring of water into our faces would inform us 

 that there were tillandsias and brocchinias above. Of animal life, we 

 observed a curious rodent occasionally dashing quickly across the way, 

 but no large mammalia, and two large brightly colored parrots pecul- 

 iar to the island, of which we did not succeed in getting any speci- 

 mens. It is a remarkable fact that most of the birds of Dominica are 

 found nowhere else. The ornithologist Ober, who visited Dominica 

 in 1880-'81 and studied its birds, was surprised to remark that a very 

 considerable proportion of them were of perfectly new species. An- 

 other species that must not be forgotten is one of large land-crabs 

 which run over the ground, and of which Ober records the habit of 

 going every year in the same month to lay their eggs in the salt- 

 water, where they may be met by thousands and thousands. In a 

 short time we reach a mountain-river of clearest water, which is called 

 the Breakfast River, because excursionists to the boiling lake, reaching 

 it at about ten o'clock in the morning, are accustomed to stop and rest 

 awhile and take their breakfast. 



On the other side of this stream we have to climb a steep, bush- 

 clad rock-wall, till in an hour we reach the top of the mountain and 

 look on a panorama of astonishing magnificence. Behind us in the 

 west lies the forest we have traversed, and the narrow green valley of 

 the Breakfast River. Before us in the east stretches a bare, ravine- 

 cut waste, strewed with volcanic stones and yellow sulphur-beds, and 

 seething with hot springs, streams, fumeroles, and solfataras, covered 

 with the remains of destroyed woods, and crowned with a pillar of 

 vapor reaching to the clouds. Beyond a turn of the valley at our 

 feet sounded a dull rumbling, which with the vapor indicated to us 

 the direction in which the boiling lake lay. We scramble over the 

 steep cliff into the valley through a wood of trees burned to a cinder, 

 but yet standing. This desolation was occasioned by an eruption of 

 the lake, which took place in 1880, by which immense masses of glow- 



