31G ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1921. 



to pass, into the dense and luxuriant forest. The trail was every- 

 where knee-deep in black mud, often deeper, for the ground here 

 never becomes dry ; and the mud being filled with roots of the trees, 

 our horses constantly stumbled. Except for the novelty of the sur- 

 roundings, it can not be said that this portion of the trip was par- 

 ticularly enjoyable. Here in this wonderful forest we first saw the 

 quetzal — the royal bird of the Aztecs, perhaps the most gracefully 

 beautiful of all birds — in a setting no less magnificent than itself; 

 for it is in the cloud-zone forests that vegetation reaches its maxi- 

 mum density, and its decorative features, while very different from 

 those of the tierra caliente, are no less beautiful and varied. 



We emerged from the forest tunnel upon an open space of circular 

 form, evidently an ancient crater 10 ; here our horses were tethered, for 

 we were near the base of the cinder-cone. Walking through a narrow 

 belt of more open forest, we entered the last zone of vegetation, a 

 dense and tangled chaparral, beyond which rose the steeper but more 

 uniform slope of scoriaceous material ejected from the crater during 

 past eruptions. On reaching the summit we were disappointed to 

 find the crater completely filled with dense clouds ; but a strong wind 

 soon dispelled these and revealed a vast pitlike amphitheater with 

 nearly vertical walls, said to be 400 meters (about 1,300 feet) high 

 enclosing a nearly circular pit, apparently a mile or more across 

 with a boiling lake occupying a portion of the crater floor. The 

 walls everywhere bore evidence of plutonic action, in places being 

 red, as if calcined. Soon the clouds drifting in from the Caribbean 

 Sea again closed the crater, and we descended, by a different trail, 

 to the shore of a beautiful lake of nearly ice-cold water — another 

 extinct crater — hemmed in on all sides by dense forest. At intervals 

 during our stay the stillness was broken by explosions of the boiling 

 lake within the crater, sometimes of such force that the ground 

 trembled, and the noise of the explosion was like that of heavy 

 artillery. 12 



Coliblanco is near the foot of the southern slope of the volcano of 

 Turrialba, at an elevation estimated to be about 6,500 feet. The 

 estate is literally hewn and burnt out of the primitive forest, which 

 commences almost at the back door — more exactly at the base of the 

 steep mountain slope a half mile or so in the rear of the house — the 

 intervening space having been cleared of the smaller trees and un- 

 dergrowth, and the grown sown to pasture grasses. The photo- 

 graph (pi. 3, fig. 2) will give some idea of the general appearance 



10 The upper edge of this open space is shown in plate 2, figure 1. 



11 The distance may in reality be less, but I did not get information as to this. 



12 The year following our last visit there was a great eruption of this volcano, during 

 which the pillar of steam or smoke ascending from the crater was estimated to be some 

 7 miles high. 



n 

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