height of the bounding cliffs is estimated at about four hundred
feet above a black horizontal ledge of hardened lava, which
completely encircles it, and beyond which there is a gradual slope
down into the burning lake. The surface of the molten lava is at
present between three and four hundred feet below this horizontal
ledge; but the lava is said sometimes to rise quite up to this
level, and to force its way out by forming an opening in the side
of the mountain, whence it flows down to the sea. An eruption of
this kind took place in 1859. On one side of the margin of the lake
there is a long pale yellow streak formed by a bank of sulphur. The
faces of the rocks composing the outer walls of the crater have a
pale ashy gray appearance, supposed to be due to the action of the
sulphurous vapours. The surface of the plain itself is much rent by
fissures. It is said that the glare from the molten lava in the
lake is so great as to form rainbows on the passing rain-clouds.

The entire Island of Hawaii is of volcanic origin; and besides this
great crater it contains two other lofty mountains, whose summits
are covered with snow, and whose height is estimated at fifteen or
sixteen thousand feet above the level of the sea. The one is named
Mouna-Kaah or Keah, the other is Mouna-Loa--the same on whose lower
flanks the crater of Kilauea is situated. Mouna-Kaah has long been
in a state of repose. So also was Mouna-Loa up to 1840, when it
burst forth with great fury, and it has continued more or less in a
state of activity ever since. There has been a grand eruption very
lately, said by the natives to have been the greatest of any on
record.

A new crater opened near the top, at a height of about ten thousand
feet, and for three days a flood of lava poured down the north-