AFRO-INDIAN REGIONS. 



443 



]i\ke ; and not s\'nclironously. its action seeming altogether indepen- 

 dent. 



On referring to our watches, we were astonished at the time that 

 had elapsed since we set out in the morning; the descent into the 

 crater, to the point in the bottom of the pit where we turned back, 

 proving a two-hours walk. Notwitiistanding measurements, we could 

 not realize the dimensions of the Great Crater; shown to be capacious 

 enough to hold and conceal any city of Europe or America ; Paris and 

 London only excepted. 



On our way back, we obtained a view down a crevice ; and disco- 

 vered, that after a few feet, the rock was everywhere heated to red- 

 ness. In smaller and more shallow crevices, the ends of sticks would 

 sometimes take tire a few inches only beneath the surface on which we 

 were standing; and the same result was obtained in certain crevices 

 of the " black ledge" above. The whole bottom of the crater was 

 evidently at no great depth heated to redness; and the subterranean 

 glow may not be confined within the walls. 



Having ascended out of the central pit, I parted from my companions, 

 and turned Southward, to make the circuit upon the " black ledge." 

 I met with places where the " black ledge" had caved in to the depth 

 of a hundred feet or more ; being, as was now evident, not solid through- 

 out, but sustained in part by a sort of dome- work of natural masonry; 

 the lava here further resembling basalt, from having separated in cool- 

 ing into blocks more or less hexagonal. I went out upon the promon- 

 tory which contracts the outline of the central pit, and approaches 

 nearest to the Great molten lake below. The cliff was cracked and 

 tottering, with much heat rising through the cracks ; the noise of the 

 moving mass in the molten lake being plainly audible; as it is some- 

 times even above, on the neighboring portion of the brink of the crater. 

 By a rare exception, there was some local disturbance at the Southern 

 margin of the lake ; where at one spot, the lava was spattering and 

 thrashing against the bank. Continuing my walk, I remarked a 

 bluish smoke accompanied with invisible sulphur fumes issuing here 

 and there from small fissures; witii little accumulations around of 

 efflorescences, those of salplmr being rarely pure. On the Southwest 

 portion of the " black ledge," some places proved difficult to get over, 

 on account of the abundance of these sulphur fumes. In the above 

 accumulations of sulphur dust, a taateleas wliiie powder was often inter- 

 mixed, sometimes by itself lining little cavities, and even becoming 



