FUMAVQLS. 555 



number of little crevices, rather indented, which 

 extend, in a serpentine direction, to a greater or 

 less distance. These little crevices are themselves 

 distinguished by a constant trembling, percepti- 

 ble on their edges ; the playing of the flame, 

 joined to the continual derangement of the edges 

 of the crevices, which falls in a fine powder in 

 the interior of the clefts, giving them a particu- 

 lar motion, which cannot be better compared 

 than to a kind of twinkling. 



" In other parts the fire, confined in a kind of 

 open ravines which are very numerous, struggles 

 against the wind, when it blows in the direc- 

 tion of those trenches ; and forms, to the sight, 

 a real stream of flame. 



" By sounding the earth with my cane, to 

 avoid those places which were too hot, and re- 

 gulating my steps by the wind, so that the smoke 

 and suffocating exhalations of hot, humid, and 

 sulphureous vapours, were driven before me, I 

 had the satisfaction of approaching and examin- 

 ing at my ease, among others, a very large cre- 

 vice, which, at that time, happened to be burn- 

 ing; its winding, broad, and elongated mouth, 

 was as if enamelled on its exterior edges, by vola- 

 tilisations of different colours, and of the greatest 

 delicacy, which from time to time fell into the fire, 



" On the kind of ashes which formed the soil 



