NARRATIVE OF THE CRUISE. 
769 
of the cone contracts, the jet is thrown higher and higher, and the spray falling all around, 
covers the lava platform around with congealed drops of a lava rain. Each of these 
drops forms a Pele’s hair, like the spray from the waves. 1 
Over one of the ranges of low cliffs in the crater, a cascade of lava had poured, and 
cooling and 'setting as it flowed, had been drawn out into long ropes and rounded ridges 
which were twisted one over another, and formed a curiously gnarled and contorted 
mass. Everywhere complex ripple marks were sharply moulded in the rapidly setting 
melted mass (see PI. XXXI.). All over the lava surfaces bubbles were to be met with 
blown in the hot lava by the escaping gases, and now set and covered by convex films of 
thin transparent lava like thin-blown green bottle glass. 2 
Not far inland from Hilo are the beautiful falls of the Waianuenne, the basins of which 
are much used as a bathing place by the natives (see fig. 268). 
Sandwich Islands to Tahiti. 
The Challenger left Hilo for Tahiti on the 19th August at 2 p.m. An excellent meri- 
dional section was made between the Sandwich and Society groups ; at every Station the 
temperature of the water was taken at every 10 fathoms from the surface to 200 fathoms, 
and at every 100 fathoms to 1500 fathoms (see Sheet 38). 
Dr. R. von Willemoes Suhm . — During the passage, on the 13th September, the 
Expedition had the misfortune to lose Dr. Rudolf von Willemoes Suhm, who died after a 
short illness from erysipelas. This sad circumstance cast a shade of melancholy over the 
ship, which was not entirely thrown off until the departure from Tahiti, for Dr. von 
Willemoes Suhm had won the respect of everyone on board by his zealous attention to 
work, and by his readiness to put up with the many inconveniences inseparable from life 
on board a ship, where the irksomeness of discipline can never be relaxed. 
Rudolf von Willemoes Suhm, son of the Kammerherr Landrath von Willemoes 
Suhm, a native of Schleswig-Holstein, was born September 11th, 1847. From his 
earliest years he showed a special aptitude for the study of all branches of Natural 
History, and during his boyhood he was a frequent contributor to the Zoological Garden 
Journal of Frankfort. 
At eighteen he went to the University of Bonn, where he was a member of the corps 
“ Borussia” and studied law. Though he was not remiss in his attendance on the 
lectures of the professors of the Legal Faculty, his own study during the three sessions 
1 Mr. H. C. Sorby, F.R.S., bad come to the conclusion from the observations on furnace slag that Pele’s hair was 
probably formed in this manner with globules attached, Nature , vol. xvi. p. 23, 1877. 
2 For a detailed account of the volcanos from a geological point of view, see W. T. Brigham, Notes on the 
Volcanic Phenomena of the Hawaiian Islands, Mem. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., vol. i. pp. 341 and 564. 
