SPECIMENS OF LAVA. 
263 
pools of water, where we filled our canteens. 
Here also our party separated ; Messrs. Good¬ 
rich and Harwood proceeding across the in 
terior through the villages of Ora to Waiakea, 
in the division of Hiro, while the rest passed 
along the east side of the crater, towards the sea¬ 
shore. The path was in many places dangerous, 
lying along narrow ridges, with fearful precipices 
on each side, or across deep chasms and hollows 
that required the utmost care to avoid falling into 
them, and where a fall would have been fatal, as 
several of the chasms seemed narrowest at the 
surface. 
In one place, we passed along for a consi¬ 
derable distance under a high precipice, where, 
though the country was perfectly level at the top, 
or sloped gradually towards the sea, the impend¬ 
ing rocks towered some hundred feet above us on 
our left, and the appalling flood of lava rolled 
almost immediately beneath us on our right. On 
this side we descended to some small craters on 
the declivity, and also to the black ledge; where 
we collected a number of beautiful specimens of 
highly scoriaceous lava, the base approaching to 
volcanic glass. It was generally of a black or red 
colour, light, cellular, brittle, and shining. We 
also found a quantity of volcanic glass drawn out 
into filaments as fine as human hair, and called 
by the natives rauoho o Pele, (hair of Pele.) It 
was of a dark olive colour, semi-transparent, and 
brittle, though some of the filaments were several 
inches long. Probably it had been produced by 
the bursting of igneous masses of lava, thrown out 
from the craters, or separated in fine-spun threads 
from the boiling fluid, when in a state of perfect 
fusion, and, borne by the smoke or vapour above 
