70 VENT AT PRESBNT ACTIVE. 



north side. On approaching it, every trace of ver- 

 dure disappeared for half a mile, or a mile, around 

 it. Small heaps and mounds of ashes and powder 

 covered all the plain, curiously mottled round their 

 sides with concentric bands of dirty reds, whites, 

 and yellows, but the general colour was dark grey. 

 Channels worn by the rains traversed these in every 

 direction, and the water seemed to lodge in flats 

 at the foot of the outer wall on the north, which 

 was therefore the lowest part of the Sandy sea. 

 In riding to the foot of the active cone I was re- 

 minded of parts of the South Staffordshire coal- 

 field, among the great iron furnaces, where not a 

 green thing is to be seen. When we reached it we 

 found a double line of ladders with handrails had 

 been constructed, so as to make a regular staircase 

 to the brink of the crater, a height of three or four 

 hundred feet. The present crater is a yawning 

 funnel-shaped hole, about 300 yards wide above, 

 narrowing to perhaps 50 or 60 below, and being 

 probably 100 yards in depth. The bottom was 

 circular, smooth, and solid looking, but on one side 

 was another funnel-shaped hole, 20 or 30 yards in 

 diameter, from which, with intermittent pants, 

 were belched forth volumes of smoke or steam, 

 while a dull continuous roar was heard below, as if 

 a thousand blast furnaces were at work in the 

 bowels of the mountain. There was no lava visible, 

 the whole cone seeming to consist of fine ashes, with a 

 few small pebble-like cinders. Beds of sulphur were 



