i872 LETTER TO TYNDALL ^01 



red-hot stones now and then. These were thrown towards the 

 south-west side of the cone, so that it was practicable to walk 

 all round the northern and eastern lip, and look down into the 

 Hell Gate. I wished you were there to enjoy the sight as much 

 as I did. No lava was issuing from the great crater, but on 

 the north side of this, a little way below the top, an independent 

 cone had established itself as the most charming little pocket- 

 volcano imaginable. It could not have been more than loo 

 feet high, and at the top was a crater not more than six or 

 seven feet across. Out of this, with a noise exactly resembling 

 a blast furnace and a slowly-working high pressure steam engine 

 combined, issued a violent torrent of steam and fragments of 

 semi-fluid lava as big as one's fist, and sometimes bigger. These 

 shot up sometimes as much as loo feet, and then fell down on 

 the sides of the little crater, which could be approached within 

 fifty feet without any danger. As darkness set in, the spectacle 

 was most strange. The fiery stream found a lurid reflection 

 in the slowly-drifting steam cloud, which overhung it, while the 

 red-hot stones which shot through the cloud shone strangely 

 beside the quiet stars in a moonless sky. 



Not from the top of this cinder cone, but from its side, a 

 couple of hundred feet down, a stream of lava issued. At first 

 it was not more than a couple of feet wide, but whether from 

 receiving accessions or merely from the different form of slope, 

 it got wider on its journey down to the Atrio del Cavallo, a 

 thousand feet below. The slope immediately below the exit 

 must have been near fifty, but the lava did not flow quicker than 

 very thick treacle would do under like circumstances. And 

 there were plenty of freshly cooled lava streams about, inclined 

 at angles far greater than those which that learned Academician, 

 Elie de Beaumont, declared to be possible. Naturally I was 

 ashamed of these impertinent lava currents, and felt inclined 

 to call them " Laves mousseuses." 



Courage, my friend, behold land ! I know you love my 

 handwriting. I am off to Rome to-day, and this day-week, if 

 all goes well, I shall be under my own roof-tree again. In fact 

 I hope to reach London on Saturday evening. It will be jolly 

 to see your face again. — Ever yours faithfully, 



T. H. Huxley. 



My best remembrances to Hirst if you see him before I do. 



My father reached home on April 6, sunburnt and 

 bearded almost beyond recognition, but not really well, for 



