GEOLOGY AND TOPOGRAPHY OF HAWAII. 179 



the view of the eternal fires by niulit, since the night view is even more wonder- 

 ful than the display by day. 



With horses, staffs, guides, lanterns and lunches in readiness the start is 

 made. To reach the floor of the crater by the usual route the visitor must 

 descend several hundred feet by a bridle path that angles back and forth down 

 the face of old fault blocks that lie like steps one lower than the other, at the 

 north end of the crater at a point just below the Volcano House. The descend- 

 ing path leads down through a scrubby wood where native birds are to be seen 

 fluttering about, singing their carols with little regard or concern for the 

 spectacle so near at hand. 



Arriving at the floor of the crater 484 feet below the Volcano House, one 

 turns to look back at the imposing -wall known as Waldron ledge,!^ with its 

 vertical face marking the extreme depth of the crater. Stretching away in the 

 opposite direction is the rough, irregiUar, glistening black floor of the crater. 



Heat Cracks and Spatter Cones. 



One of the first points of interest, after passing obseiwatioii hill, is the 

 great crack that opened on the crater floor, fifteen or twenty feet wide and 

 half a mile long. It opened without warning a number of years ago (Novem- 

 ber 4th, 1889) while a party of visitors were down at the pit. On their way 

 .back to the Volcano House they foiind this yawning gulf where they liad passed 

 without fear but a few hours before. 



The journey across the lava field is full of interest, especially to one on foot. 

 There are great hollow domes of lava one or two hundred feet long by twenty 

 or more feet in height to be climbed; cracks and fissures to be inspected and 

 many curious forms and freaks that the lava takes in cooling to be studied 

 or puzzled over. Then there are the steam crevices, and heat crevices, and 

 gas crevices to be examined and tested. An innumerable number of caves of 

 different sizes have been formed by the change brought about by the cooling 

 lava. Among the more important perhaps are Pele's reception room, as cool 

 and inviting as her kitchen is hot and oppressive. Here hundreds of visitors 

 have left their cards scrawled over with messages to the great goddess. Then 

 there are the curious stalactite caves where the walls and floors are covered with 

 tube-like stalactites and stalagmites formed from the mineral-charged water 

 which percolates through the porous lava. 



Tlie corral where equestrians dismount and tie their horses is a rough en- 

 closure beside the trail a quarter of a mile from the fiery lake. From it the 

 elevation to the edge of the pit is quite noticeable. Along the path the sulphur 

 cracks become more numerous. A little way to the right the heat issues from 

 the cracks over an area several acres in extent, that, owing to the deposits of 

 soda and sulphur, appears white against the darlv lava that surrounds it. It is 

 here that totirists amuse themselves by scorching souvenir postal cards by tuck- 



of the U. S. E.vploring E.xepdition (1840). 



