HOLIDAYS IN HAWAII 
an active voleano. There are no veils of vapor to 
hide it from you. It appears easy enough to cast a 
stone into the midst of it, but none of us could quite 
do it. 
The mass of boiling lava is said to be about one 
and one half acres in extent. Its surface is covered 
with large masses of floating crust, black and 
smooth, like leather or roofing-paper, and between 
these masses, or islands, the molten lava shows in 
broad, vivid lines. It is never quiet. When not 
actually boiling, there is a slow circulatory move- 
ment, and the great flakes of black crust, suggest- 
ing scum, drift across from one end to the other and 
are drawn under the rocks. At one moment only this 
movement is apparent, then suddenly the mass be- 
gins to boil furiously all over the surface, and you 
hear dimly the sound of the bursting bubbles and 
the crash of the falling lava. When this takes place, 
the black floating masses are broken up and scat- 
tered as they are in boiling maple-syrup, but they 
quickly reunite, and are carried on by the current 
as before. 
Looking upon this scene with the thought of the 
traditional lake of fire and brimstone of our fore- 
fathers in mind, you would say that these black, 
filthy-looking masses floating about on the surface 
were the accumulation of all the bad stuff that had 
been fried out of the poor sinners since hell was in- 
vented. How much wickedness and uncharity and 
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