LIFE IN A VOLCANO. 71 



of a pale yellowish colour. Further inland, during the 

 whole ride of fourteen leagues, I saw only one other vege- 

 table production ; and that was a most minute yellow 

 lichen, growing on the bones of the dead mules." * 



The rugged desolation which characterises the interior 

 of the crater of a volcano, even though the fiery torrent 

 which formed it be at the time dormant, seems ill-suited 

 for the smiling beauty of flowers ; yet such occasionally 

 exist there. 



Sir Thomas Acland, who ascended to the summit of 

 Schneehatten, the lofty volcano of Norway, describes the 

 crater to be broken down on the northern side, surrounded 

 on the others by perpendicular masses of black rock, 

 rising out of, and high above, beds of snow that enveloped 

 their bases. The interior sides of the crater descended in 

 one vast sheet of snow to the bottom, where an icy lake 

 closed the view, at the depth of 1500 feet from the highest 

 ridge. " Almost at the top," he says, " and close to the 

 snow, which had probably but a few days before covered 

 them, were some very delicate and beautiful flowers, in 

 their highest bloom, of the Ranunculus glacialis, growing 

 most profusely ; nor were they the only inhabitants : 

 mosses, lichens, and a variety of small herbaceous plants 

 were in the same neighbourhood ; and, lower down, dwarf- 

 birch, and a species of osier, formed a pretty kind of 

 thicket. The traces of reindeer appeared on the very top- 

 most snow/' ( 



* Nat. Voyage, chap. xvi. 



t MS. letter, quoted in Barrow's Excursions in the North of Europe, 

 p. 359. 



