xiv INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 



" all the horrors of Easter Island, and Terra del Fuego, even 



" without the assistance of snow. It was a ruinous heap of rocks, 



" changed by the fire of a volcano. Nearly in the cent:'e of the 



" island, rises a broad, white mountain of great height, on which 



" we discovered some verdure by the help of our glasses, from 



" whence it has obtained the name of Green Mountain. On land- 



" ing, we ascended among heaps of black cavernous stone, which 



" perfectly resembles the most common lavas of Vesuvius and 



" Iceland; and of which the broken pieces looked as if they had 



" been accumulated by art. The lava currents, cooling very 



" suddenly, may easily be imagined to produce such an effect. 



" Having ascended about fifteen yards perpendicular, we found 



" ourselves on a great level plain of six or eight miles in circuit ; 



" in one corner of which, we observed a large hill of an exact 



" conical shape, and of a reddish colour, standing perfectly 



" insulated. Part of the plain between those hills was covered 



" with great numbers of smaller hillocks, consisting of the same 



" wild and rugged lava as that near the sea, and ringing like 



" glass, when two pieces are knocked together. The ground 



" between the heaps of lava was covered with black earth ; but 



" where these heaps did not appear, the whole was red earth. 



'' The conic hills consisted of a very different sort of lava, which 



*' was red, soft, and crumbling into earth. We concluded, that 



" the plain on which we stood was once the crater, or seat of a 



" volcano, by the accumulation of whose cinders and pumice- 



" stones, the conic hills had been gradually formed ; and that 



" the currents of lava, which we now saw, divided into many 



" heaps, had perhaps been gradually buried in fresh cinders and 



" ashes ; and the waters coming down from the interior moun- 



" tains, in the rainy season, had smoothened every thing in their 



"way, and filled up by degrees the cavity of the crater. The 



