Volcano of Kirauea . 
35 
waste of thirty miles in extent, and destitute of moisture, 
a basin, ever full, ever fresh, ever ready to moisten the 
parched lips of the wanderer. 
As if for the sake of the contrast, we find, at two 
hundred paces from the welcome reservoir, the sunken 
furnace of Kirauea, which now absorbs, and confines 
within its crater of eight miles round, the fury and 
violence once extended over an area of three times the 
circumference. From the summit of the cliffs which 
separate between the lowest level of the ancient and the 
unfathomed depths of the modern basin, we overlook the 
sublimest convulsions of nature, whose interest can only, 
perhaps, be rivalled by the terror they inspire. Effort 
after effort fails to arouse the eye from its barren and 
aimless gaze, and to recall the attention to the consecu¬ 
tive investigation of facts. 
The point where I made the computation of height 
above the level of the sea is N.N.E. of the crater. 
It amounts to 4109 feet, or at least 950 feet below 
the rim of the old crater. Within two paces of this 
spot is the edge of the precipice, which goes right 
down 900 feet, to the level of the boiling surface of 
igneous matter. The descent from the N.E. to this 
level is often precipitous, always slippery, winding 
among a thousand openings, which vomit forth hot 
vapours, and displaying an area of 9,450,000 square feet 
comprised within perpendicular walls, and thickly 
strewed with masses of smoking lava, half congealed, 
and, like the masses of ice in a blocked-up channel, 
pitched one against another*, either standing on end, or 
* “The general aspect of the crater may be compared to that which 
the Otsego Lake would present, if the ice with which it is covered 
in winter were suddenly broken up by a heavy storm, and as sud¬ 
denly frozen again, while large slabs and blocks were still toppling 
and dashing and heaping against each other with the motion of the 
waves .” — Voyage of the Blonde. 
D 2 
