1895.] Geography and Travels. 265 
The crater is about a mile in diameter, and the top of the encircling 
wall on which the explorer stood, is about 160 feet above the crater 
floor. The inner side of the wall was too steep for comfortable descent, 
and, in view of what was going on at the bottom, there was absolutely 
no temptation to make the journey. 
The yellow-hued bottom of the crater floor was as smooth as the sur- 
face of a lake, and the explorer believes he was looking down upon an 
expanse of molten lava. Above this smooth surface rose the walls of 
two orifices, which was over 300 feet in diameter ; a small volume of 
smoke was issuing accompanied by a noise that sounded like the roll 
of distant thunder. There were unmistakable indications that outside 
of this crater another center of eruption exists on the west side of the 
mountain, but the explorer was unable to push through the woods to 
reach it. 
For some years a little lake has appeared on the maps some distance 
south of the place this volcano has been found to occupy. It is Lake 
Kivu, seen by no white man until von Gotzen stood on its shores soon 
after he had looked down in the smoking crater. He says the lake 
stretched away before him like a sea, and, though it was a clear day, 
he could not see its southern shores. He believes the lake is almost 
as large as Lake Albert Edward. Its outlet is supposed to be the 
Rusisi River, which enters the north end of Lake Tanganyika. 
It is too early to regard the large prizes of African discovery as all 
won when such interesting and important results reward research, as 
those attained by the latest traveler across Africa. (From N. Y. Sun 
in Scientific American, Jan. 5, 1895). 
