Dr Tilesius mi the Volcano of Coosima. 351 
of its rocks, die same colours, and the same barrenness. We 
sailed between these two islands, which are at the distance of 
but six English miles from each other. The depth of the safe 
course for sailing was unfathomable, since, from caution, we kept 
sounding during the whole of the passage, but we could find no 
bottom in the channel with 100 fathoms of line. It was only, 
therefore, the summits of the volcano which we saw. Hence there 
is here also an unusually strong current; and just as we were 
sailing through the channel, changeful calms took place, so that 
we committed ourselves to the current, and our ship, the Na- 
deschda, sailed thrice around the small volcano Coosima, so 
near to it, that I could sketch it at my leisure from four sides 
during this circumnavigation, and could look from the mast 
downward into the crater, and other apertures of the mountain. 
I could; in the space of half an hour, have ascended to the sum- 
mit, and gone round it on all sides, so favourable was the op- 
portunity ; but we were afraid of gusts of wind which might 
come, and, on that account, no boat was launched for me. I 
was often so near the rock, however, that with great ease I 
could have thrown a stone to it from the mast, and could dis- 
tinguish, with my naked eye, all the small pieces, rolled masses, 
dross, porous brown dross, and broken materials of its compo- 
sition. The margin of the crater, and of the other spiracles, was 
all in smoke, -^the smoke was light-coloured (silberzveiss ), and 
here and there a blue sulphur flame had penetrated to the sur- 
face. One side of the crater, which had fallen in, was filled 
with plates of red puzzolana. The cavity between the separa- 
ted rocks was penetrated all over with spiracles, which con- 
tinued in activity beneath the surface of the sea. Still more 
distinctly was seen the old lava near the level of the water, 
at the foot of the rock or peak, which rises in the form of 
an amphitheatre, and is, as it were, wrought into a terrace by 
steps and stairs (stuffen und treppen). The margins of the 
beds, and of the hardened lava stream, of which these steps 
were formed, discovered wasting or weathering, from the con- 
stant action of the waves of this deep sea. They were of a 
brown-red colour, and porous. 
These volcanoes are waste and uninhabited, and so naked, 
that not even a pile of gi’ass grows upon them. Around Oosi- 
A a 
