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120 Geological Features of the Island of Owyhee or Hawaii. 
whose whole lives had been spent on the stormy deep, were not 
easily deterred from the undertaking. arity 
Each one of the party, with a staff to test the safety of th 
footing, now commenced a perilous journey down a deep and 
rugged precipice, sometimes almost perpendicular, and frequently 
intersected with frightful chasms. In about forty five minutes 
they stood upon the floor of the great voleano. 
Twenty six separate volcanic cones were seen, rising from 
twenty to sixty feet; only eight of them, however, were in ope- 
ration. Up several of those that were throwing out ashes, cin- 
ders, red hot lava, and steam, they ascended, and so near did they. 
approach to the erater of one, that with their canes they dipped 
out the liquid fire. Into another they threw large masses of sco- 
riz, but they were instantly tossed high into the air. 
A striking spectacle in the crater at this time, was its lakes of 
melted lava. ‘There were six; but one, the southwest, occupied 
more space than all the others, Standing by the side of this, 
they looked down more than three hundred feet upon its surface, 
slowing with heat, and saw huge billows of fire dash themselves 
on its rocky shore—whilst columns of molten lava, sixty of 
seventy feet high, were hurled into the air, rendering it so hot 
that they were obliged immediately to retreat. Aftera few min- 
utes the violent struggle ceased, and the whole surface of the lake 
was changing to a black mass of scorie ; but the pause was only 
to renew its exertions, for while they were gazing at the change; 
suddenly the entire crust which had been formed commenced 
cracking, and the burning lava soon rolled across the lake, heav- 
ing the coating on its surface, like cakes of ice upon the ocealr 
surge. Not far from the center of the lake there was an island 
which the lava was never seen to overflow ; but it rocked like # 
ship upon a stormy sea. The whole of these phenomena wele 
witnessed by the party several times, but their repetition was al- 
ways accompanied with the same effects. - 
They now crossed the black and rugged floor of the crater, which 
was frequently divided by huge fissures, and came to a ridge © 
lava, down which they descended about forty feet, and stood up 
on a very level plain, occupying one fourth of the great floor of 
the crater. 'This position however was found very uncomfortable 
to the feet, for the fire was seen in the numerous cracks that i0- 
tersected the plain only one inelx from the surface. Capt. Chase 
‘ 
