260 On the Volcanic Character of the Island of Hawaii. 



beautiful specimens of lava, generally of a black or red co- 

 lour, light, cellular, brittle, and shining. They also found a 

 quantity of volcanic glass, drawn out into filaments as fine as 

 human hair, and called by the natives rouoho o Pele, (hair of 

 Pele). It was of a dark olive colour, semi-transparent, and 

 brittle, though some of the filaments were several inches long. 

 Probably it was produced by the bursting of igneous masses 

 of lava, thrown out from the craters, or separated in fine spun 

 thread, from the boiling fluid, when in a state of perfect fu- 

 sion, borne by the smoke above the edges of the crater, and 

 thence wafted by the winds over the adjacent plain, for they 

 also found quantities of it at least seven miles distant from the 

 crater. They " entered several small craters, that had been 

 in vigorous action but a short period before, marks of very 

 recent fusion presenting themselves on every side. Their size 

 and height were various, and many, which, from the top, had 

 appeared insignificant as mole-hills, they now found twelve or 

 twenty feet high. The outsides were composed of bright 

 shining lava, heaped up in piles of most singular form. The 

 lava on the inside was of a light or dark red colour, with a 

 glazed surface, and in several places, where the heat had evi- 

 dently been intense, they saw a deposit of small and beauti- 

 fully white crystals. They also entered several covered chan- 

 nels, down which the lava had flowed into the large abyss. 

 They were formed by the cooling of the lava, on the sides 

 and surface of the stream, while it continued to flow on un- 

 derneath. As the size of the current diminished, it had left a 

 hard crust of lava of various thicknesses over the top, sup- 

 ported by walls of the same materials on each side. The in- 

 terior was beautiful beyond description. In many places they 

 were ten or twelve feet high, and as many wide at the bot- 

 tom. The roofs formed a regular arch, hung with red and 

 brown stalactitic lava, in every imaginable shape ; while the 

 bottom presented one continued glassy stream. The winding 

 of its current, and the ripple of its surface were so entire, that, 

 it seemed as if, while in rapid motion, the stream had sud- 

 denly stopped and petrified, even before its undulated surface 

 could subside. They travelled along one of these volcanic 

 chambers to the edge of the precipice that bounds the great 

 crater, and looked over the fearful steep down which the fiery 

 cascade had rushed. In the space where it had fallen, the lava 

 had formed a spacious basin, which, hardening as it cooled, 

 had retained all those forms which a torrent of lava, falling 

 several hundred feet, might be expected to produce on the 

 viscid mass below." 



Large rocks were scattered around, of four or five tons 



weight, 



