TIME AND CHANGE 
they were composed of soot and brick-dust. One of 
them is much larger than any of the rest. I thought 
it might be two hundred feet high. “It is eight hun- 
dred,” said our guide; yet its summit was more than 
a thousand feet below the rim upon which we sat. 
There has been no eruption in Haleakala since 
early in the last century. Over a large area of the 
interior the black lava, cracked and crumpled, meets 
the eye. Miles down one of its great arms toward 
the sea, we could see the green lines of vegetation, 
mostly rank ferns, advancing like an invading army. 
Far ahead were the skirmishers, loose bands of ferns, 
with individual plants here and there pushing on 
over the black, uneven surface toward the second- 
ary craters of the centre. Vegetation was also 
climbing down the ragged sides of the crater, drop- 
ping from rock to rock like an invading host. The 
ferns, those pioneers of the vegetable world, appear 
to come first. Their giant progenitors subdued the 
rocks and made the soil in Carboniferous times, and 
prepared the way for higher vegetable forms, and 
now these striplings take up the same task in this 
primitive world of the crater of Haleakala. Their 
task is a long and arduous one, much more so than 
in those parts of the island where the rainfall is more 
copious; but give them time enough, and the barren 
lava will all be clothed with verdure. When decom- 
posed and ripened by time, it makes a red, heavy 
soil that supports many kinds of plants and trees. 
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