254 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
We regret that we had not means for ascertaining 
more accurately its depth. We lowered down a 
line one hundred feet from the edge of the plain 
on which our hut was erected, but it did not ap¬ 
pear to reach near half-way to the black ledge of 
lava; and judging the proportion below to be 
equal to that above, it could not be less than seven 
or eight hundred feet to the liquid lava. We 
also threw down some large stones, which after 
several seconds struck on the sides, and then 
bounded down to the bottom, where they were 
lost in the lava. When they reached the bottom 
they appeared like pebbles, and we were obliged 
to watch their course very steadily, to perceive 
them at all. 
In company with Dr. Blatchely, Messrs. Cham¬ 
berlain and Ely, American Missionaries, and a 
gentleman resident in Oahu, I have since visited 
Kirauea, when we again endeavoured to measure 
“ Mr. Goodrich and myself visited the volcano again, 
and, with a line, measured the upper edge of the crater, 
and found it to be seven miles and a half in circumference. 
We then descended, and measured the side of the ledge, 
and satisfied ourselves that, at the depth of five or six 
hundred feet, the circumference is at least five miles and 
a half. We did not get the exact depth of it, but judge 
it not less than one thousand feet. We had good oppor¬ 
tunities for forming a judgment."-In a letter to pro¬ 
fessor Silliman, of New Haven, Mr. Goodrich corroborates 
the above, and states also, that he walked across the 
bottom, where the lava was hard, the surface of which, 
though apparently smooth as seen from the top, was raised 
in hills or sunk in valleys; that dense sulphureous fumes 
and gases, very suffocating, some of them resembling mu¬ 
riatic gas, ascended from almost all parts of the bottom, 
making in their escape a c tremendous roaring, like the 
discharge of steam from the boiler of a steam engine ;* at 
one place the florid lava was boiling like a fountain, and 
spouting up lava forty or fifty feet into the air.— Philoso¬ 
phical Magazine for September , 1826 . 
