GEOLOGY AND TOPOGRAPHY OF HAWAII. 177 



l)y tile rojidside. It was lierrics like llicsc thai were loiiu' a^o made an offering to 

 Pele. Their presence reminds one that we must he nearing Jier domain. 



Bundled up in winter wraps as a protection against the eoo! of the higher 

 elevation one tintls it hard lo I'eali/.e that back yotidci' by the sea-shore, scarcely 

 4,000 feet below, groves of cocoanut trees are nodding in the hmguid warmth 

 of the tropical summer afternoon. But before long the auto rounds a curve 

 in the road and the Crater Hotel, a well-appointed though eomi)ai-ativeiy new 

 hostelry, is in sight. About a mile further is the old-established Volcano 

 House, the very personification of hospitality and good cheer. To the left and 

 just beyond the Volcano House, and until this moment hidden from view, looms 

 up the great caldera. Even then one can hardly realize that the journey to the 

 world's great inferno is really at an end. 



First View of the Crater. 



Those who are as enthusiastic as they should be join a horseback or an auto- 

 mobile party that very afternoon and ride down into the crater to get a view of 

 the eteriml fires, for fear, as sometimes happens, they may have vanished ])efore 

 the morrow. If worn from the journey and suffering from the effects of a 

 choppy sea while crossing the channels, the traveler may sit in the great observa- 

 tion room on the hotel lanai and rest and drink in the reflected grandeur of the 

 fires that, as darkness gathers, paint their fury on the fleecy white clouds that 

 silently drift over nature's great melting-pot, the dark outlines of which can be 

 traced by its own light reflected back from the sky. 



In the morning the great crater looms out of the fog — black, silent and 

 sublime. The view in the early morning is most fascinating, but, as one's tinit^ 

 is ahvays limited and as there are other sights to be seen near at hand, it is 

 customary to pay a visit to the sulphur beds before breakfast. 



Steam Cracks and the Sulphur Bed. 



It is a weird sight to see the steam rising from the cracks and ci'evices on 

 every side and to know that for years, centuries perhaps, these same exhausts of 

 steam have played without increased or diminished volume. It is not uneonunon 

 to find a hotel servant busily engaged heating water over one of the nearby 

 steam cracks, preparing to wash the hotel linen. A few rods farther on past 

 the hotel the sidphur beds themselves are to be seen steaming and sparkling in 

 the morning sun. They cover several acres in extent aiul ai"e a never-ending 

 source of delight and wonder. There perhaps for the first time one lireathes 

 real sulphur fumes and realizes not only that the earth under foot is hot. too 

 hot to stand on in places, but that it is slowly being added to, l)il by "oil. as- 

 nature quietly deposits there minerals in forms so delieate in sti-nrtni'f. and 

 beautiful in color, that they crumble and dissolve as the wonderful yellow and 

 pink and white masses of newly-formed crystals arc held in hand. While the 

 amount of sulphur deposited is not great it is in some cases quite pnrc As the 

 sulphur is usually mixed with the red clay formed by the decomposition of 



