7^ PRESENT CONDITION OF VOLCANOES. 



when the whole space of the Sandy sea was one 

 great crater, bounded by walls of which the existing 

 circuit of the Ider-Ider is, in all probability, but 

 the ruin. This, and all the neighbouring volcanoes, 

 seemed to have long ago reached that point in their 

 formation, at which the volcanic forces ceased to 

 have power to eject streams of lava over the lip of 

 the craters, or to burst a passage for them through 

 their sides, and to have gone on for a long time 

 blowing out dust and ashes, which have deeply 

 buried all previous streams of lava, and covered 

 them from sight. This appears to be the condition 

 of Semiru, on the sides of which appear none of 

 the black lava torrents so conspicuous on the cone 

 of the peak of Teneriffe, for in whatever aspect we 

 saw Semiru its cone had the same smooth sym- 

 metrical shape and light greyish tint. 



The extent of bare black sand between the active 

 vent of the Bromo and the foot of the wall on the 

 north is about a mile, having traversed which, we 

 ascended the precipice where it was about 500 feet 

 in height, by a narrow sloping road, partly cut out 

 of the face of the rock. We then rode another 

 mile and a half, down one of the outside ridges, to a 

 village called Wonosari, a small place on an expan- 

 sion of the sloping ridge we were then descending. 

 This we reached a little after one o'clock, and found 

 a very good wooden house, with a garden round it, 

 in which were growing roses and other flowers, 

 and the sitting-room had a large fire-place, on 



