202 Miscellanies. 



of September, I made a short visit to the volcano, and found that 

 there had been a tremendous action in and about the crater ; the 

 crater had been filled up to the black ledge and about fifty feet 

 above, about nine hundred feet in the whole, since I first visited it, 

 and it had now again sunk down to nearly the same depth as at first, 

 leaving, as usual, a boiling caldron at the south end. The inside of 

 the crater was entirely changed ; the earthquake in January last had 

 rent in twain the walls of the crater on the east side, from the top to 

 the bottom, producing seams from a few inches to several yards in 

 width, from which the region around was deluged with lava. The 

 chasms commenced at the bottom of the crater, rending every thing 

 in their way, and took an easterly direction up the perpendicular walls 

 of the immense caldron, within a few yards of where Mr. Stewart, 

 Lord Byron, myself and others have slept, when visiting that awful 

 place ; so that the very spot where I have lain quietly many times, is 

 entirely overrun with lava; almost all the specimens in the brown 

 kapa were taken from the place where I have slept, as also Lord 

 Byron and others. 



Huge rocks were thrown in various directions ; the chasms con- 

 tinued eastward, rending the causeway that connects the two cra- 

 ters, the mass of which, with the region around, has sunk about 

 a foot, as is evident from the walls farther back. The path in front 

 of the lodging place, by which we descend into the abyss, is now 

 rendered entirely impassable, by the rending of the rocks and de- 

 luging of the lava, so that another path, that is more difficult, is the 

 only one remaining. I found it a much more arduous task to descend 

 to the bottom than formerly; after travelling from the north to the 

 south end, I found myself on the brink of a burning lake or glade, 

 if the word will apply to this scene. Here was an opening in the 

 lava, about twenty feet below, sixty or eighty rods long, and twenty 

 or thirty rods wide ; the whole mass of liquid and semi-fluid lava 

 was boiling, foaming and dashing its fiery billows against the rocky 

 shore; the mass was in motion, running from north to south, at the 

 rate of two or three miles an hour, boiling up as a spring at one 

 end and running to the other. 



Mr. Stewart's description of the bottom of the crater, as contained 

 in his journal of his residence on the island, page 381, gives a fair 

 account of the bottom of the crater, as it at present appears, with 

 the exception of the lake or glade. Imagine to yourself, a river 

 congealing with the cold in the winter season, the current floating 



