f^okanic Mountain in St. Viucent*;5. 2^ 



\Ve gaitied the top of the peak I had directed my conrfe to be- 

 fore ; when, 111 an iiiAant, we were lurprifcd with one of the 

 grandeft and mod: awful fcenes I had ever beheki. I .vas {truck, 

 with it amazingly, as I could not have conceived fiich a very, 

 large and fo finguiarly formed an excavation. It is iituated on 

 the center of tlie mountain, and where the various ridces 



to • 



unite. Its diameter is fomething more than a mile, and its cir- 

 cumference to appearance a perfe6l circle. Its depth from the 

 »furrounding margin is above a quarter of a mile, and it nar-. 

 rows a little^ but very regularly, to the bottom. Its fides are 

 very Imooth, and for the moif part cov^ered with fliort mofb^ 

 except towards the fouth, where there are a number of fmali 

 holes and rents. This is the only place where it is poiTible to 

 go down to the bottom. : it is exceedingly dangerous, owing to 

 the numberlefs fmall chafms. On the weft fide is a fe£llon of 

 red rock like granite, cut very fmoothj and of the fame decli- 

 vity with the other parts. All the reft of the furrounding f.des 

 feems to be compofed of fand, that looks to have undergone 

 the adion of intenfe fire. It has a cruft quite fmooth, of 

 about an inch thick, and hard almoft as rock ; after breaking 

 through which, you find nothing but loofe fand. In the center 

 of the bottom is a burning mountain of about a mile in cir- 

 cumference, of a conic form, but quite level. On the fum^ 

 mit, out of the center of the top, arifes another mount, eight 

 or ten feet high, a perfed: cone ; from its apex ifllies a column 

 of fmoke. It is compofed of large mafl'es of red granite-like 

 rock of various fizes and fliapes, which appear to have been 

 fplit into their prefent magnitudes by fome terrible convulfion 

 of nature, and are piled up very regular. From moft parts of 

 the mountain iffue great quantities of fmokej efpecially on the 

 north fide, which appears to be burning from top to bottom, 



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