444 



DISTRIBUTION OF PLANTS. 



plumose. A much more rare powdery efflorescence was also wJdie, 

 but had a sharp taste, too sharp it appeared to me for alum. In the 

 lava itself, c/;r^.so//fc was the only imbedded mineral met with ; iron 

 may have been diffused generally, but there were no traces distinguish- 

 able : a minute quantity of a bluish ore " from the bottom of the crater" 

 was afterwards shown me, supposed to be copper ?. I kept on as far as 

 a singular altar-like excrescence, six feet or so high, composed of a 

 very brittle kind of rock, curled in all sorts of fantastic shapes, opaque 

 and white, and more resembling lime than lava : but lime and carbon- 

 ates of all kinds are probably absent both from the crater and surround- 

 ing country. Returning to the central pit, I took a view of the molten 

 lake from the Southeast ; and then proceeded to the Southern wall of 

 the crater, near the point where it begins to be sloping and accessible. 



There are here some regular " fumaroles," Avith steam escaping in 

 large quantities from the basal portion of the vertical wall. Notwith- 

 standing the universal dry efflorescences of the bottom of the crater, 

 water of crystallization is not wanting there, as appeared from the im- 

 bedded crystals of chrysolite; but in the "fumaroles," the sulphur 

 was all crystallized. The cavities from which the steam issued, were 

 many of them beautifully lined with sulphur snow, or flocculent crys- 

 tals ; and specimens were procured at some risk of scalding, but on the 

 slightest shock, the whole became a confused mass. There are other 

 "fumaroles" or " sulphur banks" back of our encampment on the plain 

 above ; and these yield solid crystals of sulphur. 



I next ascended out of the crater by the slope adjoining; passing 

 over various patches of wliite incrustations with impure sulphur 

 intermixed. The plain above, on this side also, contained concentric 

 crevices formed by the general settling ; with steam in a few places 

 issuing forth. Continuing around Eastward, and by degrees North- 

 ward, I descended upon the ridge of land separating on the right an 

 extensive pit-crater called Kilauwea : at the end of this Isthmus, I 

 reascended, and soon reached the encampment. 



On the 17th, in company with Lieut. S. Elliot, I descended into 

 the Great Crater by the usual path : leading down the only portion of 

 the wall and whole interior that is clothed with vegetable growth. 

 The plants here extend downwards in a scattered manner all the way 

 to the "black ledge :" but even at the junction, there were no marks 

 of scorching on the shrubs, no indications of recent exposure to molten 

 lava, nor of rising in the surface-level of the " black ledge." Neither, 



