BOILING LAKE OF DOMINICA. 63 
picture of the lake. It was then four o’clock, and the 
sun had dropped very near the margin of the western 
hills, and just lingered sufficiently to allow me to 
secure the first photograph ever made in these moun- 
tains. Well for me the lake was ina state of qui- 
escence. Well for the success.of my picture that the 
water was not in a wild fury of ebullition, and that its 
basin was not filled with steam, as it had ever been 
found before. 
Directly opposite the stream in which I stood was 
the rent in the wall through which flowed the overflow 
from the lake, when it was at its work, through which 
at such times poured a stream of sulphur-water that 
formed a torrent and descended to the coast below. 
Through this gap I could look away south, across and 
over green mountains to the shores of Martinique 
gleaming through the mist in the waning sunlight, 
twenty miles away, yet seemingly within an hour’s 
row of yonder ridge. This rent is from thirty to forty 
feet in width at the top, and perhaps fifty in depth. 
I descended to the lake margin. The rim of 
recent subsidence was clearly defined: a belt of black, 
yellow and gray deposit, some three feet wide. It was 
narrower on the second day, and the ebullition had 
much increased, showing that, though I was the first 
to discover it in repose, it must be intermittent in 
character, and was then preparing to boil forth again. 
For this effect I waited long, much desiring to see it 
in that state, but was not gratified, though the dis- 
turbance and noises continued to increase and the 
water to rise. 
The temperature of the water, as far out as I could 
reach my thermometer, was ninety-six degrees; of 
