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Sierra Club Bulletin. 



above, making them golden, and up through them from 

 beneath, making them crimson. At first the light was 

 a gentle suffused glow. Then it spread and kindled, 

 billow upon billow, until the whole heavens were aglow. 

 And then the great sun shot up vast rays like search- 

 lights from beneath the horizon, rays which at length 

 overcame and expelled the shadows and charged the 

 clouds with all the colors of the spectrum. 



With the full light of day we turned our steps back- 

 wards and upwards towards the crater itself. The circu- 

 lar rim is about three fourths of a mile in circumference, 

 and of unequal height, some parts being as much as two 

 hundred feet higher than others. It is possible in some 

 places to approach almost to the edge and to obtain an 

 excellent view of the interior. It is an awful scene. 

 Out of the red and yellow walls there shoot jets of 

 flame and steam. A heavy sulphurous smell fills the 

 air. The bed of the crater is about three hundred feet 

 below the rim and about thirty acres in extent. Between 

 the rushes of smoke and steam we could catch glimpses 

 of the bottom. Intermittent fires sprang up and sub- 

 sided. At intervals there came a choking, gurgling 

 sound, and there arose boiling water and seething ashes, 

 which sank again as suddenly as they had risen, giving 

 forth clouds of sulphurous smoke and steam, and then 

 all was quiet again for a time. 



There was a fascination in the horror of the place — 

 that sort of fascination which draws men to throw them- 

 selves headlong in order to experience the full extent of 

 the horror. 



Only two weeks prior to our visit two young Japanese 

 had committed suicide there. They were students in 

 the department of diplomxacy in the University of Tokyo, 

 and having failed to pass the examinations which would 

 have admitted them to appointments they were seeking, 

 they "succumbed to the inevitable" and hurled them- 

 selves out of the world. What must have been the 

 thoughts of these two young intellectuals as under the 



