The Edge of Ha/eiinuiiuaii. 



85 



When we were near Halemanman, we came to a cone formed of spattered lava and 

 cemented scoriae, some twenty-five feet high, with a bright light at its apex. This was 

 the first fire we had seen, but we passed by, eager to reach the great 'ake. This we 

 reached after ascending a gradual incline. It was eight hundred feet in diameter, and 

 the lava was fifty feet below the cliff on which we stood, covered with a dark crust which 



was broken around the 

 edges, and there the 

 blood-red lava was visi- 

 ble, surging against its 

 walls with a dull, sullen 

 sound. The smoke was 

 blown away by the wind 

 so that we were able to 

 stand on the very verge 

 of the pit ; but the heat 

 was so great that we 

 were compelled to hold 

 our hands before our 

 faces. 



The wall on which 

 we stood, and where we 

 intended to sleep, was 

 thickly covered on the 

 side towards the pit, 

 with waving, woolly 

 Pele's hair, which we 

 saw forming continu- 

 ally. The drops of lava 

 thrown up drew after 

 them the glass thread, or sometimes two drops spin out a thread a yard long between 

 them, and the hair thus formed either clings to the rough sides or is blown over the 

 edge, where it catches on any projedling point. The drops are always black, or a very 

 dark green on the surface, but light green within, porous and quite brittle, and the 

 thread is transparent, and when first formed, of a yellow or greenish color. Occasionally 

 a crack would open across the lake, and violent ebullition commence at various points 

 along its surface. There were two .small islands in the lake which the lava seemed 



seeking to destroy. The current would often set in toward the banks, and it appeared 



[463] 



FIG. 58. BOTTOM OF THE FKAGMKNT I, FIG. 57), SHOWING THREE LARGE DROPS. 



