768 Transactioks of the American Institute. 



as it opened before us in all its majestic grandeur and unrivalled 

 beauty. At the left were those four great fountains, boiling up with 

 most terrific fnry, throwing crimson lava and enornions stones weigh- 

 ing a hundred tons to a height Varying constantly from five hundred 

 to six hundred feet. At times these i"ed hot rocks completely filled 

 the air, cansing a great noise and roar and flying in every direction, 

 but generally towards the south. Sometimes the fountains would all 

 subside for a few minutes, "and then commence increasing till the 

 stones and liquid lava reached a thousand feet in height. The 

 grandeur of this picture, ever varying like a moving panorama 

 painted in the richest crimson hues, no person can realize unless he 

 has witnessed it. 



From this great fountain to the sea flowed a rapid stream of red 

 lava, rolling, rushing and tumbling like a swollen river, and bearing 

 along in its current large rocks that almost made the lava foam as it 

 dashed down the precipice and through the valley into the sea, surging 

 and roaring throughout its length like a cataract, with the power and 

 fury perfectly indescribable. It was nothing else than a river of fire 

 from two hundred to eight hundred feet wide and twenty feet deep, 

 with a speed varying from ten to twenty-five miles an hour. 

 ■K- * -jf- ->t * * * 



Night soon came, and with it the scene became a thousandfold 

 more beautiful, the crimson of the fountains and the river doubly 

 rich and brilliant, the lurid glare of the dense clouds and steam that 

 overhung us and the roaring of the crater and the cataract were fearfully 

 grand and awe-inspiring. It was like tlie conflagration of all London 

 or Paris, as the whole scene extended over a distance of ten miles. 

 Add to this the flashes of lightning and the sharp, quick claps of 

 thunder, and the reader can imagine that a scene was before us that 

 well repaid us for our opportune visit. 

 -> * -;f * «■ ^ * 



Regarding the rapidity of the stream of lava, since reading accounts 

 of former eruptions, in which it is claimed that the lava flowed forty 

 miles an hour, we must say that it is hardly possible to conceive of a 

 stream flowing with greater ra])idity than the cataract and river we 

 witnessed April 10. It reminded us of the Connecticut river in a 

 spring flood, with the stream filled with ice and rushing over the 

 rapids at an impetuous rate. The speed is more likely to have been 

 twenty-five miles an hour than twelve. Where it ran down the 

 precipice, at an angle of about thirty degrees, it was more narrow 



