SJcetch of the Life of Mr, David Douglas. 331 



round boulders of lava are so regularly placed, and the sand is 

 so washed in around them, as to give the appearance of a cause- 

 way, while in others, the lava seems to have run like a stream. 

 We commenced the ascent of the great peak at nine o'clock, on 

 the N. E. side, over a ridge of tremendously rugged lava, four 

 hundred and seventy feet high, preferring this course to the very 

 steep ascent of the south side, which consists entirely of lava, 

 ashes, and scoriae, and we gained the summit soon after ten. Though 

 exhausted with fatigue before leaving the table land, and much 

 tried by the increasing cold, yet such was my ardent desire to 

 reach the top, that the last portion of the way seemed the easiest. 

 This is the loftiest of the chimneys : a lengthened ridge of two 

 hundred and twenty one yards two feet running nearly straight 

 N. W. To the north, four feet below the extreme summit of the 

 peak, the barometer was instantly suspended, the cistern being 

 exactly below, and when the mercury had acquired the tempera- 

 ture of the circumambient air, the following register was entered 

 at 11 h. 20 m.; bar. 18.362 in.; air 33° ; hygr. 0" 5. At 12 

 o'clock the horizon displayed some snowy clouds ; until this period 

 the view was sublime to the greatest degree, but now every ap- 

 pearance of a mountain storm come on. The whole of the low 

 S. E. point of the island was throughout the day covered like a 

 vast plain of snow with clouds. The same thermometer laid on 

 the bare lava, and exposed to the wind at an angle of 27° ex- 

 pressed at first 37^ and afterwards at 12 o'clock 41°, thou^-h 

 when held in the hand, exposed to the sun, it did not rise at all. 

 It may well be conjectured that such an immense mass of heatino- 

 material, combined with the influence of internal fire, and taken 

 in connexion with the insular position of Mouna Kuah, surroun- 

 ded by an immense ocean of water, will have the effect of raising 

 the snow line considerably : except on the northern declivity, or 

 where sheltered by large blocks of lava, there was no snow to be 

 seen : even on the top of the cairn where the barometer was fixed, 

 there were only a few handsful. One thing struck me as curious, 

 the apparent non-diminution of sound, not as respects the rapidity 

 of its transmission, which is, of course, subject to a well known 

 law. Certain it is, that on mountains of inferior elevation, whose 

 summits are clothed with perpetual snow and ice, we find it need- 

 ful to roar into one another's ears, and the firing of a gun, at a 

 short distance, does not disturb the timid antelope on the high 

 snowy peaks of N, W. America. Snow is doubtless a non-con- 



