CORAL REEFS 271 



great wave of earth and stones down the adjacent valley, 

 covering a tract of country about fifteen by ten miles, 

 making two large lakes by damming the river, burying 

 many villages, and killing about five hundred people. 



" After walking about a mile we came to the gravelled 

 flow which nearly destroyed the village of Mine. This 

 flow we followed for a mile or so, and then walked 

 about three miles until we came to the bed of a stream 

 entirely covered with huge boulders and sand. Both 

 these districts were before the eruption well cultivated 

 and filled with thriving hamlets. We walked along the 

 river-bed for about four miles, and then crossed a low 

 pass and a series of ravines, gradually climbing for 

 about two hours till we reached the edge of the huge 

 excavation made by the blowing-off of the mountain, 

 and could see from the point we had reached the two 

 lakes and the heaps of gravel and of boulders covering 

 the once fertile tract, with no end of little cones formed 

 by the minor explosions of steam which are still going 

 on in the main cavity formed. There steam is issuing all 

 the time and we heard many ominous noises and distant 

 rumbling, which made us feel somewhat uncomfortable, 

 as we were standing on the vertical edge of the bluff 

 left standing ! Max took many views which I hope will 

 print well, and I was fortunate enough at Sendai, to 

 find a lot of photographs taken soon after the eruption." 



He reached Tacoma in June, laden with spoil ; but 

 for once his trophies were not scientific, but artistic ad- 

 ditions to the collections of old Chinese and Japanese 

 bronzes and porcelains that had been gradually accum- 

 ulating in his Cambridge and Newport houses. 



