NARRATIVE OF THE CRUISE. 
767 
doubt deer, which have been turned out, will thrive there and multiply rapidly. A few 
small sandalwood trees remain uncut in the vicinity. 
When the crater of Kilauea was reached it appeared in the dark as a wide abyss filled 
with gloom, but in the distance were seen three or four glowing spots, reminding one of 
the furnaces seen at night in the Black Country, and every now and then a jet of glowing 
matter showed itself thrown up from a lava fountain, which happened to be playing at 
the time. 
In the morning the crater was seen to be bounded by a range of cliffs all round, and 
at the bottom was a wide flat expanse of hardened lava which looked as fresh as if it had 
only just set (see Frontispiece to Part II.). The crater has evidently been formed by the 
sudden falling in of vast masses of rock by the fusion and flowing away of the supporting 
rock below. A succession of smaller secondary cliffs round the inner margin of the crater- 
bottom mark where this process has been repeated several times, for after the crater has 
been filled to certain levels, and the lava has hardened, the support has given way on 
successive occasions over the greater part of the area. The smooth surface of the lava 
within the crater was very like that traversed on the journey from Hilo ; it was cracked 
by contraction on cooling in all directions, and through all the cracks, at a depth of a foot 
or so, was seen to be glowing hot. 
The well-known molten lake of Kilauea was at the time of the visit rather to be 
termed a pond, for a stone could have been thrown across it ; it occupied a small area on 
the floor of the main crater. It was possible to stand on a low cliff overhanging it on 
the side from which the wind drifted away the stifling vapours exhaled from it, and to 
throw stones into the pond of melted rock below. A low cliff bounded the expanse 
nearly all round. At the base of this cliff opposite, in three places, a violent surging 
was constantly taking place, the melted rock being thrown up high above the cliff by 
violent discharges of gas from below. The melted rock was thrown in waves against the 
base of the cliff which, as they surged against it, made a noise like that of waves of the 
sea beating similarly' against rocks. There seemed to be no tenacity about the melted 
lava, it splashed about just like water.. As the waves fell back from the bases of the 
cliffs, pendent coagulations of lava were formed for an instant, and hung in the glowing 
cavities like icicles, but were re-melted in a moment by the returning waves, which glowed 
brightly with heat as they were thrown up. The lake itself was covered with a thin 
black scum of coagulated lava with red-hot cracks in it, and the whole moved slowly 
round under the influence of the ebullition taking place at one side as above described. 
Close by was another but smaller pond, where, however, the churning up of the lava 
was more violent ; it occurred here also, as in the other pond, at the bases of the low 
bounding cliffs only. The waves dashed against the cliffs, threw their spray high into 
the air above them, and the wind carried part of this spray over the edges of the cliffs 
so as to fall on the hard lava platform far above. 
(NARR. CHALL. EXP. VOL. I. — 1885 .) 
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