is accompanied by the discharge of an immense volume of steam, which at
once shuts off all view of the inside of the crater; but sometimes,
during the few seconds intervening between the pulsations, or when a
breeze for a moment carries the steam to one side of the crater, we can
see to the depth of thirty feet into the volcano, but cannot often
discover the boiling mud; though occasionally, when there occurs an
unusually violent spasm or concussion, a mass of mud as large in bulk as
a hogshead is thrown up as high as our heads, emitting blinding clouds
of steam in all directions, and crowding all observers back from the
edge of the crater. We were led to believe that this volcano has not
been long in existence; but that it burst forth the present summer but a
few months ago. The green leaves and the limbs of the surrounding forest
trees are covered with fresh clay or mud, as is also the newly grown
grass for the distance of 180 feet from the crater. On the top branches
of some of the trees near by--trees 150 feet high--we found particles of
dried mud that had fallen upon the high branches in their descent just
after this first outburst, which must have thrown the contents of the
volcano as high as 250 or 300 feet. Mr. Hauser, whose experience as an
engineer and with projectile forces entitles his opinion to credit,
estimates from the particles of mud upon the high trees, and the
distance to which they were thrown, that the mud had been thrown, in
this explosion, to the height of between 300 and 400 feet. By actual
measurement we found particles of this mud 186 feet from the edge of the
crater.

We did not dare to stand upon the leeward side of the crater and
withstand the force of the steam; and Mr. Hedges, having ventured too
near the rim on that side, endangered his life by his temerity, and was
thrown violently down the exterior side of the crater by the force of
the volume of steam emitted during one of these fearful convulsions.