86 BA WAIIAN G VIBE B OK. 



lava, only a few weeks old. Parts of it are very rough 

 and ridgy, jammed together like field ice, or compacted 

 by rolls of lava which may have swelled np from beneath, 

 but the largest part of the area presents the appearance 

 of huge coiled hawsers, the ropy formation of the lava 

 rendering the illusion almost perfect. These are riven 

 by deep cracks which emit hot sulphurous vapors. 

 Strange to say, in one of these, deeji down in that black 

 and awful region, three slender metamorphosed ferns 

 were growing, three exquisite forms, the fragile heralds 

 of the great forest of vegetation, which probably in com- 

 ing years will clothe this pit in beauty. Truly they 

 seemed to speak of the love of God. On our right there 

 was a precipitous ledge, and a recent flow of lava had 

 poured over it, cooling as it fell into columnar shapes as 

 symmetrical as those of Stafia. It took us a full hour 

 to cross this deep depression, and as long to master a 

 steep hot ascent of about 400 feet, formed by a recent 

 lava-flow from Hale-mau-mau into the basin. This la- 

 va hill is an extraordinary sight — a flood of molten stone, 

 solidifying as it ran down the declivity, forming* arrest- 

 ed waves, streams, eddies, gigantic ^convolutions, forms 

 of snakes, stems of trees, gnarled roots, crooked water 

 pipes, all involved and contorted on a gigantic scale, a 

 wilderness of force and dread. Over one steeper place 

 the lava had run in a fiery cascade about 100 feet wide. 

 Some had reached the ground, some had been arrested 

 midway, but all had taken the aspect of stems of trees. 

 In some of the crevices I picked up a quantity of very 

 curious filamentose lava, known as " Pele's hair." It re- 

 sembles coarse spun glass, and is of a greenish or yellow- 

 ish-brown color. In many places the Avhole surface of 



