318 SAMOAN ISLANDS. 
main range of the island, and, with one exception, they form very 
low elevations upon its outline. The excepted one, near Iasetootai, 
runs up into a high cone, and is called Tafua. (See sketch, page 
319.) Of the other craters, the one back of Sangana, and another 
back of Apia, called Lanu-to’o, are most distinct. Between the first 
two, the outline of three prominences may be distinguished in the 
view from the sea, which may possibly be other craters, and two 
others are seen between the latter two. Tafua forms the western 
extremity of the main ridge of Upolu, and is the source of the rock 
and soil that constitute this portion of the island. Below it there are 
one or two small craters, which are properly subordinate to Tafua. 
The overflowings from this line of craters, which extend twenty 
miles in a direction east-by-south and west-by-north, have produced 
the long slopes of the mountain in this district. Tafua-is the only 
crater which appears to have been much elevated by cinder eruptions. 
Tafua, viewed from the northward and westward, is a truncated 
cone, of regular form, rising abruptly out of the main ridge of the 
island, which is here not more than half its usual height. I found its 
altitude, by barometrical measurement, to be 2136 feet, while the 
main ridge to the westward of the peak is 1170 feet high. Viewing 
it from the northward, where the following portion of the main ridge 
to the east becomes visible, the cone is observed to be lengthened in 
this direction, and then rapidly declines again, as seen at d on the 
following sketch. Leaving Fasetootai for the crater, we travelled in- 
land for three miles over a gently rising plain, following a path 
through the forests which led us to the foot of the ridge a little to 
the west of the cone. The declivity now gradually increased in ab- 
ruptness, till the path became a steep flight of steps; yet the surface 
was so covered with soil that the rocks were rarely visible. Having 
ascended the ridge, we left the path that crosses it, struck along the 
