230 
MISSIONARY TOUR 
thus employed, we prepared to examine the many 
interesting objects around us. Mr. Bishop returned, 
with a canteen of water, to meet Mr. Harwood, who 
had not yet come up. 
Mr. Thurston visited the eastern side of the great 
crater, and I went with Mr. Goodrich to examine some 
extensive beds of sulphur at the north-east end. After 
walking about three-quarters of a mile over a tract of 
decomposed lava, covered with ohelo bushes and ferns, 
we came to a bank about a hundred and fifty yards 
long, and in some places upwards of thirty feet high, 
formed of sulphur, with a small proportion of red clay 
or ochre. The ground was very hot; its surface rent 
by fissures ; and we were sometimes completely enve¬ 
loped in the thick vapours that continually ascended 
from these cracks. A number of apertures were visible 
along the whole extent of the bank of sulphur; smoke 
and vapours arose from these fissures also; and the 
heat of the sulphur around them was more intense than 
in any other part. Their edges were fringed with fine 
crystals, in various combinations, like what are called 
flowers of sulphur. We climbed about half way up 
the bank, and endeavoured to break off some parts of 
the crust, but soon found it too hot to be handled. 
However, by means of our walking sticks, we detached 
some curious specimens. Those procured near the 
surface were crystallized in beautiful acicular prisms, 
of a light yellow colour; while those found three or 
four inches deep in the bank, were of an orange yellow, 
generally in single or double tetrahedral pyramids, and 
full an inch in length. A singular hissing and cracking 
noise was heard among the crystals, whenever the out¬ 
side crust of the sulphur was broken and the atmo- 
