﻿Prof. Milne — Visit to an active Volcano. 195 



near the place where we ascended, an inclination of from 40° to 50°. 

 We were soon amongst a network of small lanes and footpaths 

 overshadowed with bamboo, alder, and other trees. Once or twice 

 our path led up to a small water-coui'se, the black ashes forming its 

 bed becoming coarser and coarser as we ascended. Next we were 

 ascending the course of an old lava-stream over black trachytic 

 boulders. Then again we were in steep gullies and narrow lanes, the 

 sides of which were made up of stratified beds of ashes, all dipping at 

 various angles down towards the sea. Once or twice we reached a 

 small open space, and obtained a view of the bare peaks towards 

 which we were travelling. Whilst resting on one of these, we could 

 distinctly hear a series of explosions, which sounded like the sudden 

 escape of large quantities of steam, and we saw clouds of vapour 

 rising from behind the nearest summit. After struggling along for 

 nearly two hours, we found that the men we had engaged as guides 

 did not know the road, and were leading us round the island rather 

 than up towards the crater. Meeting with a lava-stream of tolerably 

 large dimensions, which was filling the bed of a gully, I struck up 

 along its course, expecting that it would lead to some crater or other 

 on higher ground. At several points along its course we met with 

 obstacles where the lava when molten had made a precipitous descent, 

 like frozen waterfalls, which involved some tedious climbing and 

 scrambling through the bushes, which thickly covered the almost 

 perpendicular walls of the ravine on either side. The rock of this 

 stream was trachytic, of a very dark colour, and extremely vesicular. 

 I may here remark that most of the lavas in Japan appear to be 

 trachytic. The general direction of the vesicles in the lava was 

 that of the stream ; but there were so many exceptions to this, 

 owing to irregularities and obstacles in its course, that they could 

 not be taken, u.nless seen as a whole, as indicating the original direc- 

 tion of the fluid matter. When lava flows over an even course, 

 such deductions might possibly be made, even if the stream were 

 only examined at one point along its course. In some places along 

 the stream my companions observed the charred trunks of several 

 trees which had probably been overwhelmed during its flow. That 

 these trees still remained seemed to indicate that this stream must 

 have been of recent origin. After about an hour's climbing, we were 

 above the line of vegetation, and instead of trees and bushes being 

 on either side of us, we now had hills of ashes. On one of them 

 my friend Dr. Naumann met with beds of tufa, in which were im- 

 pressions of plants, which, from some attached rootlets, appeared to 

 have been buried where they grew. From the position of these 

 beds and their contents it was evident that vegetation once extended 

 much higher up the sides of the mountain than it does at present, 

 and that it was probably destroyed by a volcanic outburst. 



We now directed our course towards the highest peak before us 

 (marked A in section), at the back of which we hoped to see some- 

 thing of the eruption. After a tough scramble through black, 

 scoriaceous ashes, we reached the top, where we soon saw that we 

 had much further to travel. We had in fact reached the rim of an 



