238 Notice of Haivaii, [Owyhee,) and its V^olcanic Regions, 8fc. 



the eye could not reach; and filled with vapor scalding hot! To have 

 fallen into it must have been instant and irrecoverable destruction. 

 In another place the path led over a crack — to all appearance without 

 bottom, several feet in width, and extending on either hand as far as 

 we could distinguish — by a single narrow arch of a foot's breadth 

 only, in the manner of a natural bridge, from which a deviation of a 

 single step would have been fatal. 



After traversing this singularly located glen, we found ourselves 

 still four or five hundred feet above the ledge, within the crater : and 

 the descent to it, very abrupt and difficult, from the hardness and 

 smoothness of the lava of which, chiefly, it is constituted. In many 

 places, large streams of no very ancient date — since they cooled and 

 hardened in their running form — marked the sides of the cliff: and 

 by a principal one of these (resembling a cascade still pouring down 

 the face of the hill,) most of our party, in slow and necessarily cau- 

 tious progress, reached the offset, or natural gallery, running round 

 the chasm. 



Here the changes that have taken place since 1825, first became 

 striking. The general features were much the same-; but almost 

 every spot, when looked upon in detail, shows evidence of new and 

 tremendous action of fire, and of convulsion after convulsion, that 

 must have shaken every thing far and wide. The greatest alteration, 

 however, is that of which I had been apprised namely, the filling up 

 of the whole surface below the ledge, at least two hundred feet. The 

 depth below this, was estimated by Lord Byron's party, at five hun- 

 dred feet — at present it cannot, on an average, be more than two 

 hundred. Many of the highest of the cones have, thus, been much 

 reduced in their loftiness ; and many have entirely disappeared. In 

 all other respects, the general surface and aspect are the same : there 

 is however much more fire in the north end than formerly, and the very 

 route we took, in crossing the bottom at that time, is now a chain of 

 liquid lakes, from one side to the other. 



My first walk on the ledge was westward — the same direction in 

 which I went when with Lord Byron — but I had not proceeded half 

 the length of the northern side, before the way was interrupted by a 

 sulphur cone, which has risen on the ledge ; and which was surround- 

 ed by such a suffocating vapor, as to prevent my passing. I therefore 

 returned to my companions, who were busily employed, in gathering 

 curious specimens of a variety of kinds, till I should return to ac- 

 company them down the remaining distance to the bottom. 



