INTERIOR OF THE CRATER 13 



the remaining sides, composed mainly of volcanic ash, afford 

 foothold only to a coarse tussocky plant growing in clumps 

 on the loose black dust. We found these latter slopes not at 

 all an attractive scene of operations, for the feet sank and slipped 

 at every step, and raised at the same time clouds of fine black 

 dust. 



During the day the heat in the interior was extreme, for 

 the sun's rays beat down upon, and were reflected from, the dark 

 slopes, while the wall of the crater completely cut off any sea 

 breeze. We did not ascend the cone, for our stay was to be 

 short, and we wished to investigate the fauna as fully as possible ; 

 but from reports of the visits paid to the island once every three 

 or four years from Port Blair, it would seem that the slight signs of 

 activity still existent consist of an issue of steam and the continued 

 sublimation of sulphur ; while of the two cones which form the top, 

 one is cold, and already bamboo grass and ferns are beginning to 

 clothe the entire summit. There is ample proof in those details 

 which have been recorded of the island during the last century 

 that the volcano is rapidly becoming quiescent, and is indeed, 

 perhaps verging on a condition of extinction, as has long been 

 the case with Narkondam. 



Captain Blair, who passed near in 1795, writes of enormous 

 volumes of smoke and frequent showers of red-hot stones. " Some 

 were of a size to weigh three or four tons, and had been thrown 

 some hundred yards past the foot of the cone. There were two or 

 three eruptions while we were close to it ; several of the red-hot 

 stones rolled down the sides of the cone and bounded a consider- 

 able way beyond us. , . . Those parts of the island that are 

 distant from the volcano are thinly covered with withered shrubs 

 and blasted trees." 



A few years later Horsburgh records an explosion every ten 

 minutes, and a fire of considerable extent burning on the 

 eastern side of the crater. In the next thirty years, the 



remote from the cone (Blair) : while as late as 1866 there were no trees of any 

 height, but on the slopes and ridges abundance of bushes, some rising 20 feet 

 (Report of the Andaman Committee). 



