370 Volcano of Kirauee. 
crevices and chasms, from many of which, light, vapor and 
smoke, and frem others, a scalding steam, are emitted. The 
general surface is a black glossy incrustation, retaining per- 
fectly the innumerably diversified tortuous configurations of 
the lava, as it originally cooled, and so brittle as to crack and 
break under us, like ice, while the hollow reverberations of 
our footsteps beneath, sufficiently assured us of the unsub- 
_ stantial character of the whole mass. In some places, by 
thrusting our sticks down with force, large pieces would give 
way, disclosing fissures and holes apparently without bottom. 
These, however, were generally too small to appear danger- 
ous. The width of this ledge is constantly diminished, in a 
greater or less degree, by the falling of large masses from its 
edges into the crater; and it is not impossible that in some 
future convulsion of the mountain, the whole structure may 
yet be plunged into the abyss below. 
eaving the sulphur banks, on the eastern side, behind as. 
we directed our course under the northern to the western 
cli As we advanced, these became more and more per- 
pendicular, till they presented nothing but the bare and up-~ 
right face of an immense wall, from eight to ten hundred feet 
high, on whose surface huge stones and rocks hung, appa- 
rently so loosely as to threaten falling at the agitation of a 
breath. In many places, a white curling vapour issued from 
the sides and summit of this precipice, and in two or three 
others, streams of clay-coloured lava, exteuding almost from 
the top to the bottom, had cooled in the form of small cas~ 
eriod. 
meth new attracted our iisoton: and by stopping 
sometimes to look up, not without a feeling of apprehensien, 
at the enormous masses over our heads—at others, to gain, by 
a cautious approach to the brink of the gulf, a nearer glance 
t the equally fearful depth below—at one time, turning aside 
uc prtain the a column of steam, and at another, 
to secure some unique or beautiful specimen, we occupied 
more than two hours, in proceeding the same number of 
miles, : 
We then came to a spot, on the western side, where the 
ledge widened. many hundred feet, and terminated on the 
side next the crater, not as in most other places, perpendicu- 
larly, but in a vast heap of broken cakes and blocks of lava, 
Cosely piled together as they had been shattered from above 
m the quakings of the mountain, and jutting off to the bot- 
