sunk below the level of its borders to a depth varying from two
hundred to four hundred feet--the walls of rock enclosing it being
for the most part precipitous. The surface of the ground is very
uneven, being strown with huge stones and masses of volcanic rock,
and it sounds hollow under the tramp of the foot.

Towards the centre of the plain is a much deeper depression. Those
who have ventured to approach it, and look down, describe it as an
awful gulf, about eight hundred feet in depth, and presenting a
most gloomy and dismal aspect. The bottom is covered with molten
lava, forming a great lake of fire, which is continually boiling
violently, and whose fiery billows exhibit a wild terrific
appearance. The shape of the lake resembles the crescent moon; its
length is estimated at about two miles, and its greatest breadth at
about one mile. It has numerous conical islands scattered round the
edge, or in the lake itself, each of them being a little
subordinate crater. Some of them are continually sending out
columns of gray vapour; while from a few others shoots up what
resembles flame. It is, probably, only the bright glare of the lava
they contain, reflected upwards. Several of these conical islands
are always belching forth from their mouths glowing streams of
lava, which roll in fiery torrents down their black and rugged
sides into the boiling lake below. They are said sometimes to throw
up jets of lava to the height of upwards of sixty feet. The
foregoing woodcut can convey only an imperfect idea of this immense
crater.

[Illustration: Crater of Kilauea]

The outer margin of the gulf all round is nearly perpendicular. The