64 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. 
the air at the same time, sixty-seven degrees; of the 
streams falling into the lake, sixty-five degrees, Fahr- 
enheit. Some months previously, Dr. Nicholls, one 
of the original exploring party who discovered this 
lake, found it at a temperature of one hundred and 
ninety-six degrees; and Mr. Prestoe, of the Botanic 
Gardens of Trinidad, recorded from one hundred and 
eighty to one hundred and ninety degrees. They 
also found it fiercely boiling, the whole crater filled 
with steam, and could obtain only occasionally a 
glimpse of the water and surrounding walls. They 
found no bottom with a line one hundred and ninety- 
five feet long, ten feet from the water’s edge. With 
Mr. Prestoe, I conclude that this solfatara, by widen- 
ing and deepening its outlet, will eventually lose its 
lake character and become merely a geyser. 
From the high bank above the lake, near the gap 
through which the waters find egress, is a fine view of 
the whole northern wall, with the streams falling down 
from the background of mountain, the hollows and 
miniature valleys and peaks beyond. The river-bed 
below is dry and yellow; but huge rocks, tons in 
weight, that the waters have moved from their beds, 
attest the force of the current when the lake is at its 
height. From the north, coming down into another 
desolate valley, are small streams— yellow, white, 
green, blue. A spring boils up through a hole three 
feet across, overtopping the surface eight inches or 
more. The main volume of hot water comes from 
higher up the mountains, and there is, I think, another 
source as large as this, which at present is unknown. 
The mountains around are green with low shrubs, 
and from the bank above the lake I secured a giant 
