226 Voyage of the Novara. 



always been quite full of steam and vapour. On tlie present 

 occasion the steam only escaped in small volumes through a 

 few fissures in the sides of the inverted cone, and more 

 particularly from the cracks and crevices on the exterior 

 of the cone of scoriae. We could perceive only water, steam, 

 mud, and sharp-cornered fragments of rock, the dtibris and 

 rubbish formed by the disintegration of the rocky masses 

 thrown up by the crater, but not a trace, not a vestige, of 

 any molten stream of lava, heaped up by the present crater 

 of Gedeh. The whole history of the activity of this volcano 

 may be compared to the explosions of a vapom- cauldron in 

 the interior of the earth, which has been heated by the 

 masses of old trachytic lava currents in an incandescent state, 

 but not yet thoroughly cooled, whose eruptions formed the 

 principal means of erecting the volcanic cone. Repeatedly 

 up to our own times has the mountain thrown up water, mud, 

 and stones, together with fine powdered sand and volcanic 

 ashes, which have travelled as far as Batavia, as also masses of 

 melted stone cemented by liquefied sand, while marvellous 

 volumes of flame were visible to an immense distance ; but at 

 no period within the memory of man has the Gedeh poured 

 forth the hot liquid lava, or thrown up into the air melted 

 volcanic matter. We must regard it as in its last stage, as 

 about to become extinct, like all tlie other volcanoes of Java. 

 It is the last reaction of the internal fires against the atmo- 

 sphere penetrating from without. Even the most active 

 volcanoes of Java, such as Gunnug Guntur and Gunung 



