HAWAIIAN ISLANDS, IN 1864-65. 17 
three to seven hundred feet high, and nearly nine miles in 
circuit. Boston could easily be accommodated within 
this crater, and Vesuvius would not much more than fill 
it. The whole circuit of the walls is much broken and 
interrupted, and we rode along over several large cracks, 
one of which opened about a year since (in 1863). Some 
are concentric, and others radial, and all along the edges 
of the abyss are fumaroles from which issue clouds of 
steam, not as at the Geysers of California, with great 
noise, but gently as a quiet respectable teakettle pours out 
its vaporous offering. The steam had no smell of sulphur, 
and ferns were growing luxuriantly over the openings, 
while the condensing vapor formed pools of sweet water, 
the only source of drinking water in this rer 
region. 
‘When we reached the north-western part of the crater, 
we found on our left a ridge of reddish earth, from which 
steam and strong sulphurous fumes poured in many pla- 
ces. This was the western Sulphur Bank, and in its cracks 
were forming the most beautifully delicate crystals of sul- 
phur, almost mosslike ; and here and there a blue crystal 
of sulphate of copper, and greenish masses of sulphate of 
iron. The earth, which is formed by the decomposition 
of the lava, was quite hot, and we found some natives 
cooking fern stalks in the steam. 
While we were examining the sulphur deposits, our 
men came up with our blankets, and we at once engaged 
an old- kanaka who lived near by, to guide us down into 
the crater. Two other kanakas went with us to carry 
water and bring back specimens. The descent was at first 
quite steep, down the hard grey walls; and then the path 
wound along on broken shelves, under a grand precipice 
two or three hundred feet high, quite perpendicular, and > 
AMERICAN NAT. VOL. I: 3 
