Prof. Milne — Visit to an active Yolcano. 
195 
near the place where we ascended, an inclination of from 40° to 50°. 
We were soon amongst a network of small lanes and footpatks 
overshadowed with bamboo, alder, and other trees. Once or twice 
our patb led up to a small water-course, the black asbes forming its 
bed becoming coarser and coarser as we ascended. Next we were 
ascending the course of an old lava-stream over black trachytic 
boulders. Then again we were in steep gullies and narrow lanes, the 
sides of which were made up of stratified beds of ashes, all dipping at 
various angles down towards the sea. Once or twice we reached a 
small open space, and obtained a view of the bare peaks towards 
which we were travelling. Whilst resting on one of these, we could 
distinctly liear a series of explosions, which sounded like the sudden 
escape of large quantities of steam, and we saw clouds of vapour 
rfsing from behind the nearest summit. After struggling along for 
nearly two hours, we found that the men we had engaged as guides 
did not know the road, and were leading us round the island rather 
than up towards the crater. Meeting with a lava-stream of tolerably 
large dimensions, which was filling the bed of a gully, I struck up 
along its course, expecting that it would lead to some crater or other 
on higher ground. At several points along its course we met with 
obstacles where the lava when molten had made a precipitous descent, 
like frozen waterfalls, which involved some tedious climbing and 
scrambling through the bushes, which thickly covered the almost 
perpendicular walls of the ravine on either side. The rock of this 
stream was trachytic, of a very dark colour, and extremely vesicular. 
I may here remark that most of the lavas in Japan appear to be 
trachytic. The general direction of the vesicles in the lava was 
that of the stream ; but there were so many exceptions to this, 
owing to irregularities and obstacles in its course, that they could 
not be taken, unless seen as a whole, as indicating the original direc- 
tion of the fluid matter. When lava flows over an even course, 
such deductions might possibly be made, even if the stream were 
only examined at one point along its course. In some places along 
the stream my companions observed the charred trunks of several 
trees which had probably been overwhelmed during its flow. That 
these trees still remained seemed to indicate that this stream must 
have been of recent origin. After about an hour’s climbing, we were 
above the line of Vegetation, and instead of trees and bushes being 
on either side of us, we now had liills of ashes. On one of them 
my friend Dr. Naumann met with beds of tufa, in which were im- 
pressions of plants, which, from some attached rootlets, appeared to 
have been buried where they grew. From the position of these 
beds and their contents it was evident that Vegetation once exteuded 
much higher up the sides of the mountain than it does at present, 
and that it was probably destroyed by a volcanic outburst. 
We now directed our course towards the highest peak before us 
(marked A in section), at the back of which we hoped to see sorne- 
thing of the eruption. After a tough scramble through black, 
scoriaceous ashes, we reached the top, where we soon saw that we 
had much further to travel. We had in fact reached the rim of an 
