336 Sketch of the Life of Mr, David Doiiglas, 



at Greenwicli and at the Royal Society, and found without error, 

 maintains a temperature of 65°. The same instrument, sus- 

 pended freely in the above mentioned fissure, ten feet from the 

 surface, expressed, by repeated trials 158°; and an equal tempe- 

 rature was maintained when it was nearly level ^vith the surface. 

 When the Islanders visit this mountain they invariably carry on 

 their cooking operations at this place. Some pork and a fowl 

 that T had brought, together with taro-root and sweet potatoes, 

 were steamed here to a nicety in twenty seven minutes, having 

 been tied up in leaves of Banana. On the sulphur bank are 

 many fissures which continnally exhale sulphurous vapours and 

 form beautiful prisms, those deposited in the inside being the 

 most delicate and varied in figure, encrusting the hollows in 

 masses, both large and small resembling swallows' nests on the 

 wall of a building. When severed from the rock or group they 

 emit a crakling noise by the contraction of the parts in the pro- 

 cess of cooling. The great thermometer placed in the holes, 

 showed the temperature to be 195^.5', after repeated trials, which 

 all agreed together, the air being then Yl®." 



" I had furnished shoes for those persons who should descend 

 into the crater, with me but none of them could walk when so 

 equipped, preferring a mat sole made of tough leaves, and 

 fastened round the heel and between the toes, which seemed 

 indeed to answer the purpose entirely well. Accompanied by 

 three individuals, I proceeded at one p. m., along the north side, 

 and descended the first ledge over such rugged ground as be- 

 spoke a long state of repose, the fissures and flanks being clothed 

 with verdure of considerable size; thence we ascended two hun- 

 dred feet to the level platform that divides the great and small 

 volcanoes." 



" On the left, a perpendicular rock three hundred feet above 

 the level, shows the extent of the volcano to have been originally 

 much greater than it is at present. The small crater appears to 

 have enjoyed a long period of tranquillity, for down to the very 

 crust of the lava, particularly on the east side, there are trees of 

 considerable size, on which I counted from sixty to one hundred 

 and twenty four annual rings or concentric layers. The lava at 

 the bottom flowed from a spot, nearly equidistant from the great 

 and small craters, both uniting into a river from forty to seventy 

 yards in breadth and which appears comparatively recent. A 

 little south of this stream, over a dreadfully rugged bank I des- 



