90 J. S. Emerson—Kilauea after the Hruption of 1886. 
overlooking the great abyss. My cautious native guide warned 
me that, as the station was directly to the leeward of the smoke 
jet, I would do well to avoid it, for fear of being suffocated by 
the sulphurous fumes. In spite of his warnings, I set up my in- 
strument at this station and continued my work without regard 
to the smoke, which was blown by the wind directly toward 
me, passing a few feet over my head. I noted by my watch 
the length of my stay at this spot to be over thirty minutes. 
During that time the piumb bob of my instrument was con- 
siderably tarnished, but though at times I was obliged to stand 
aside for a moment to avoid the smoke, I suffered no special 
discomfort either then or afterward. 
New Lake and Lnttle Beggar.—On the 5th of April, followed 
by my native guide, ] explored the abyss formerly occupied by 
the New Lake, and set up a flag at one of its lowest points 
marked on the map Jnferno. Entering the 114; acre sunken 
district at a point near Central rock, I passed over a number 
of cracks in the inclined floor of pahoehoe from which arose a 
considerable volume of heated air, and paused for a moment at 
a still hot cone, now fallen in and rapidly cooling off. It had 
formerly been a most conspicuous object. T'o distinguish this 
small caldron of molten matter (once visible down its throat) 
from the great lakes of liquid rock, it had been dubbed the 
“Tittle Beggar.” Passing over the old trail to Halema’uma’u 
I came to the edge of what had been called the “ Bridge,”’ be- 
tween the two lakes. From this point the descent into the 
Little Beggar was quite abrupt, and the whole character of the 
rocky surface assumed a very different appearance. A large 
portion of the bottom of the lake was composed of huge, solid 
bowlders, as rounded and smoothed as if worn by some moun- 
tain torrent. ‘They were covered about an inch in thickness 
with a fresh coating of black vitreous enamel, left adhering to 
them when the molten contents of the lake had sunk from view 
on the 6th of March. This enamel was very brittle, and, under 
the sharp blows of my walking stick, broke in pieces, exposing 
the solid rock beneath. The general appearance of the floor 
was that of a series of well-rounded hillocks and holiows, uni- 
formly covered with the black coat already referred to. There 
was a marked absence of broken or angular fragments. At the 
base of the vertical wall, directly beneath New Lake 1, was a 
spot of considerable heat, much greater than that of any other 
place in the lake, (or what was the lake until the eruption). 
It was evidentiy the upper extremity of the shaft which had 
connected the boiliug lava in the lake with the depths beneath. 
The sides of the wall above it and the vertical faces of the 
massive rocks on its northwestern side formed an arc, some- 
what circular, of perhaps ten feet radius. They showed the 
