BOILING LAKE OF DOMINICA. 63 



picture of the lake. It was then four o'clock, and the 

 sun had dropped very near the margin of the western 

 hills, and just lingered sufficiently to allow me to 

 secure the first photograph ever made in these moun- 

 tains. Well for me the lake was in a state of qui- 

 escence. Well for the success of my picture that the 

 water was not in a wild fury of ebullition, and that its 

 basin was not filled with steam, as it had ever been 

 found before. 



Directly opposite the stream in which I stood was 

 the rent in the wall through which flowed the overflow 

 from the lake, when it was at its work, through which 

 at such times poured a stream of sulphur-water that 

 formed a torrent and descended to the coast below. 

 Through this gap I could look away south, across and 

 over green mountains to the shores of Martinique 

 gleaming through the mist in the waning sunlight, 

 twenty miles away, yet seemingly within an hour's 

 row of yonder ridge. This rent is from thirty to forty 

 feet in width at the top, and perhaps fifty in depth. 



I descended to the lake margin. The rim of 

 recent subsidence was clearly defined : a belt of black, 

 yellow and gray deposit, some three feet wide. It was 

 narrower on the second day, and the ebullition had 

 much increased, showing that, though I was the first 

 to discover it in repose, it must be intermittent in 

 character, and was then preparing to boil forth again. 

 For this effect I waited long, much desiring to see it 

 in that state, but was not gratified, though the dis- 

 turbance and noises continued to increase and the 

 water to rise. 



The temperature of the water, as far out as I could 

 reach my thermometer, was ninety-six degrees ; of 



