from a column of fire 1000 feet high, and spouts forth a torrent of lava, several miles in breadth, that burns up forests and jungles in its winding way, and drinks dry the swamps and streams to an extent of nearly seventy miles.

The last eruption commenced in August 1855, and was still in full blast about the same time last year. It is described in letters by Mr F. A. Weld to Sir Charles Lyell, and the Rev. Titus Coan to the British Consul-general for the Sandwich Islands, both read at the Geological Society last December.

On the 11th of August 1855, a small point of light was observed on the summit of Mauna Loa. This is one of the three volcanic mountains of the island of Hawaii, in the Sandwich group. It appears, like the others, smooth and rounded when viewed from a distance, standing almost in the centre of the island, and rising from the sea-coast through every diversity of country in a gradual ascent of about forty miles. The little point of light was seen from Hilo, a town in Byron's Bay, and won the eye from the beautiful expanse between, with its picturesque ravines filled with banana, bread-fruit, and candlenut trees, and cutting through grassy slopes dotted here and there with small coffee and sugar plantations, till the region of comparative fertility met the dark forests that clothed the middle of the mountain. The star on the summit grew more and more brilliant as the people gazed; then it rose and expanded by degrees, filling the whole heavens with its ominous glare. The eruption, however, was not distinguished by any remarkable projection of burning substances into the air, but by a vast and steady discharge of lava, the fiery floods of which burst from the summit, and rushed down the side with appalling fury, The main torrent first directed itself into the valley between Mauna Loa and one of its sisters, Mauna Kea, and then, taking an easterly direction, flowed over forests, jungles, swamps, and streams, towards Hilo, widening, as it advanced, from a breadth of three miles to five or six, and the depth varying from ten to several hundred feet. Our first good view,' says Mr Weld, of the eruption was at night, from the deck of a ship in the harbour, as trees obstructed the view from the shore. The distant craters were scarcely visible, but the burning forests above Hilo shewed the front of the advancing lava, lighting up the night with a mighty glare, with sometimes a column of red light shooting up, occasioned probably by an explosion of the half-cooled upper crust of lava, or by dried trees falling into the devouring element.' The rapidity of the ponderous fluid, however, must not be judged by that of water. Although it rushed down the steep of the mountain with incalculable speed, it is not mentioned that in the more level country it made much greater progress than a mile in the week; but still, day after day, it filled the air with smoke, darkening the entire horizon, and converting into a desert vast tracts till then waving with fruits, and adorned with all the glory of tropical verdure.

was burning, and trees were falling; the rending of the rocks, the detonation of gases, clouds of steam from boiling water, and scintillations from burning leaves filled the atmosphere; and the red glare above resembled a firmament on fire. During the night, we were nearly surrounded by the advancing lava, and when we decamped in the morning, we left our sheltering tree in flames.'

The

Mr Weld's journey to the top of the mountain was broken by a visit to the crater of Kilauea, much lower down, the lava-torrent from which, a few years ago, burst into the sea at more than thirty miles' distance, forming several islands, and heating the waters, and killing the fish, in an area of many miles. crater of Kilauea is seven miles in circumference, and about 1500 feet deep.* The cliffs forming its outer lip form a nearly perpendicular wall of yellowish clay and dark basalt rock. The bottom of the crater is constantly changing; and frequently it holds in the lower hollow a lake of molten lava a mile long, and half a mile broad. On the present occasion, it was a plain, more or less broken, of lead-coloured lava, dotted with small mounds and craters, giving forth clouds of smoke, and, as night approached, kindling up here and there into fires.

The ascent from hence to the summit was through woods, over old lava-streams, by the mouths of large caverns, and heaps of stones to mark where travellers had perished. They lay down for the night on some half-vitrified ashes; being at such an elevation that the next morning when they tried to make some tea, the water, although it boiled readily, did not attain heat enough. That day the view of the opposite mountain of Mauna Kea was remarkably fine. The old conical craters on its summit covered with newly fallen snow, its huge outline shadowy and dim, the clouds of smoke that rose round its base from the valley down which the present flood of lava is flowing, the wild dreariness of the foreground, and the tropical sky above, formed a scene almost indescribably grand and wonderful.' On arriving at the lava of the present eruption, they were able to trace its devastating course below. It had been partially cooled on the surface, so as to admit of their walking on it, though with some difficulty and danger, as the flood of liquid fire still continued to roll under the crust. Of this flood, Mr Weld obtained a view through a broken part of the surface. The huge arch and roof of the cavern glowed red-hot, and, as with some difficulty I obtained a point directly overhanging it, the glare was perfectly scorching. The lava, at almost a white heat, flowed slowly down at the rate of about three or four miles an hour. I dropped a fragment of rock into it, which it carried floating on. There was something very impressive in its steady, smooth onward course.'

The eruption came from two craters, one a mile lower than the other. In the lower, the upper crust of the lava had cooled, and the discharge was subterranean; although the smoke, darkness, and sulphureous stench continued to make it an object of awe. The upper crater still sent up those volumes of red smoke and partially ignited gases which at night appeared a lofty column of flame. Having commenced their return

Both Mr Weld and Mr Coan visited the scene of the outbreak, the latter giving also an account of the appearance of the lava-stream at its terminus, not more than fifteen miles from Hilo. To gain this point through the jungle, and over the bed of a river, while the rain poured down in torrents, was a work of difficulty; but on the evening of the second day, he came suddenly upon the burning lava, consuming the thicket before him for a breadth of several miles, and gleaming with innumerable fires. The party halted under a tree within a few feet of the lava-stream, the heat of which they made use of to boil their tea, and keep them warm 'through the long and stormy, but intensely interesting night. The pyrotechnical scene was indescribable: standing under our tree, we could survey an area of some fifteen square miles, over which countless fires were gleaming with extreme brilliancy. The jungle volcano, said to be twenty-four miles in circumference.

'Our sleeping-place was about 500 feet below the level of the craters: the night was fine with us; but, whilst above us the craters rolled up dark columns of smoke, below, over Hilo and Kilauea, raged a magnificent thunder-storm. The level of the top of the clouds was somewhat below us, and along it played flashes of the most vivid lightning, whilst the thunder-peals seemed to roll up from the valley below. Later in the night it rained, and in the morning,

On the island of Maui, there is the crater of an extinct

though in the tropics, the exterior of the fur-rug in which I slept was white with hoar-frost.'

In Mr Coan's journey to the summit, he walked along the lava-stream for some distance, where it appeared to be five or six miles broad; then observing a narrower place, he crossed to its opposite bank. 'At this point the whole surface of the lava was solidified, while the molten flood moved on below like water under ice in a river. The superficial crust of the lava was crackling with heat and emitting mineral gases at innumerable points. Along the margin, numerous trees lay crushed, half-charred, and smouldering upon the

hardened lava.'

That night, they slept on the cooled lava, above the line of vegetation. The next day, 'upward and upward we urged our weary way upon the heated roof of the lava, passing, as we ascended, opening after opening, through which we looked upon the igneous river as it rushed down its vitrified duct at the rate of forty miles an hour. The lava-current at this high point on the mount was fearful, the heat incandescent, and the dynamic force wonderful. The fire-duct was laid from 25 to 100 feet deep down the sides of the mount; and the occasional openings through the arches or superincumbent strata were from 1 to 40 fathoms in diameter. Into these orifices we cast large stones, which, as soon as they struck the surface of the hurrying flood, passed down the stream in an indistinct and instantaneous blaze. Through openings in the mountain we could also see subterranean cataracts of molten rock leaping precipices of 25 or 50 feet. The whole scene was awful, defying description. Struggling upwards amidst hills, cones, ridges, pits, and ravines of jagged and smoking lava, we came at 1 P.M. to the terminal or summit crater, and, mounting to the highest crest of its banks, we looked down as into the very throat of hell.' This, according to Mr Coan, is the summit of the mountain, while Mr Weld places the highest crater 1500 feet below the summit. The former indeed met with nothing at all like what is commonly called a crater. The plateau of the mountain was rent with yawning fissures, bordered with masses of scoriæ, lava, &c., 'piled in the form of elongated cones, rent longitudinally, while the inner walls were hung with burning stalactites, and festooned with a capillary or filamentous lava, called Pele's hair, and much resembling the hair of a human being.' The burning lava is not seen at this point-it goes off by a subterranean chamber: 'but the fearful rush of white smoke and gases from these fissures on the summit fills one with awe, and the spectator must use his utmost care lest the fierce whirlwinds which gyrate and sweep over these heated regions throw him over, or strangle him with sulphureous gases.' It is not wonderful that the natives consider the hair, hung in so extraordinary a situation, to belong to the goddess Pelé. It is reddish, brownish, or of golden hue'-in fact, auburn; and the beautiful but awful being it adorned lost the fragments in her wild gambols as she rioted in her volcano-bath during the night, splashing the liquid fire to the heavens, and flinging its fitful glare over the sea.

We may add, that the immense crater of Kilauea was in full work in 1840, when the flood of lava 'forced itself under its mural sides at the depth of 1000 feet, pursuing its way towards the sea in subterranean galleries, until the fiery flood broke ground, and folled down in a burning deluge, from one to four miles wide, sweeping away forest and hamlet, and filling the heavens with its murky clouds and its lurid glare. In three days it reached the sea, having travelled thirty miles; and for two weeks it plunged in a vast fiery cataract, a mile wide, over a precipice some fifty feet high. The commotion, the detonations, the rolling and gyrating clouds of ascending vapour were awfully sublime. The ocean was heated for

twenty miles along the coast, and thousands of marine animals were killed.'

Such is Mauna Kea when the fit is on her!

PASSING THROUGH BALTIMORE
AND NEW YORK.*

June 1, 1857.

BALTIMORE is a place of little interest to a stranger; it is, however, the first slave-town I have been in. Being on the borders of the free states, it is only half a slave-state, the slaves enjoying comparative freedom. There I saw for the first time a black man walking with a white woman. It is against the law in all slave-states, and almost never seen in the free. They may not marry either.

I found an agreeable companion in a Frenchman, a bookseller from Mobile; he walked with me about the town, and told me many things of interest. He says that the blacks are better off in the slave than in the free states, and I believe it. They always get two or three weeks' holidays in the year, and often go travelling through the free states, with a pass-ticket from their masters. I met several myself. Many of them in towns become wealthy, and refuse to purchase themselves, preferring to remain slaves! The southerner told me that, two years ago, a black man came and set up a barber's shop in Mobile, and became very popular. After a while, it oozed out that he lived with a white wife; he was immediately taken up, sent to the penitentiary for five years, and his wife ordered to quit the state. Black men (free) are allowed to travel through any state, but not to settle in them, in the south, at any rate.

At nine o'clock this morning, 'I took the cars for Washington.' The scenery is very similar to that on the New York line, only with this exception, that from every rock there did not issue the information, in staring white letters, that 'Phalon's Paphian Liquid is the best Cosmetic.' Thus nature becomes subservient to art, and vice versa. How the sylphs must hate the noxious fluid; but there are no fairies here-elves, goblins, sprites hold no moonlight revels here. Barnum would have caged and shewn them in pantaloons and tights!

Over Thomas's' Viaduct, and past the immortal man's monument; some fifty people fishing in the river below, catching enormous jack-sharps; and then on through the woods again, the banks covered with beautiful blue lupines, and the magnolias glittering like snow-flakes on the trees.

Arrived in Washington, the chief city of this great country; we drive, the southern and myself, to Kirkwood's Hotel. Hotels are a great institootion; every thing in America is an 'institootion'-mintjuleps, corn-cakes, and steam-boats: this is another. If you go into a shop and ask: 'Have you any so-and-so?'-they reply: 'We hain't got anything else;' meaning to inform you that their chief business is in that article, that it receives their particular attention; and perhaps, after all, they havn't got it.

As soon as we reached our hotel, we saw that there was a great crowd, and were told that there was an election of councilmen going on. A lot of roughs' from Baltimore were said to be getting up a disturbance. The polling-booth was right opposite us, and there seemed to be a great deal of excitement. I had stepped into the bar, to write my name and secure a room, when bang-bang-bang went some firearms. I thought it was rejoicing, but saw a fellow cutting up the street, and another after him with a six-shooter, as they call them, which he fired slap at his back, without

carelessly written memoranda of a young sojourner in the United What follows is really, as it appears, an extract from the States.

stopping him, however. The amusement-excitement rather now became general. About twenty shots were fired, and Mr Kirkwood closed the bar of the hotel by putting the shutters to.

6

Washinton without importing them. Tell you what
I'd do-I'd shoot every one of them, as soon as he
shewed a weepn,' &c. These seemed to be the general
sentiments of the respectable portion of the community
present, and were received with applause. The cap-
tain, for such he was, volunteered to do for one man if
others would do the like. All professed their willing-
ness to serve the cause of peace and justice.-No. 1
then continued his statement thus: The worst of it is,
that they havn't shot one Baltimore feller. But there's
an officer of the Land-office dead!'-No. 2: 'Ah,
that's a pity.'-No. 5 (evidently a hanger-on of state):
'Never mind; some one else will get that: they'll fill
up the appointment to-morrow.'-No. 1: 'There was
a little girl shot, down an avenue, by mistake. She
was dying.'-Chorus: 'Ah, that's the worst of these
rows, they always shoot the wrong people.'-Citizen
No. 6, rather a sententious, prosy old fellow, perceiv-
ing that I was a stranger, drew me aside and began:
This is a bad time to be here. We never have any
fights here mostly, except at the general elections; but
these Baltimore fellows will come down here.
is a free country, you know, and every man goes
where he likes-that is, he is at liberty to do as he
pleases-that is a- Yes, at the Baltimore election
there were 160 killed-that is, shot each other-died,
you know. Now, there was that young man in the
Land-office-I knew him quite well-that is, I was
acquainted with his appearance. I was aware he was
a most respectable character-no one more so, as far as
I know; at least, I may say he was as respectable as
any one almost. Well, he was shot-fired at, wounded
in the stomach, abdomen-just here, you know-and
death came on, happened, occurred, supervened. Well,
perhaps, he was only looking on; but I daresay he was
one of the leaders. But it's all over now-that is,
finished, quite quiet again-put down, you know,
quelled-that is a Just then a buggy drove up,
with a white-headed old man in it, wounded in the
arm, not seriously, however, but covered with blood.
He was looking out of his window when shot. His
name was Colonel Williams, I believe.

This

Presently the Baltimores cleared off-about a dozen ruffians, as villainous a looking set as I ever saw. Nobody was hurt, and I began to doubt whether the pistols were loaded with ball. An American remarked to me that the practice was very bad. I thought he meant the practice of using revolvers, and said Shameful!' He turned round, stared, and then added: 'I guess, if I shoot at a man, I hit him! I don't run when I shoot.' 'No,' said another, 'you shoot, and then run.' (General laugh.) Distant shots were heard about town. The city was in an uproar. Report came in that the mayor had asked the president for a guard of marines. I drove away to see the Capitol. It is a fine white marble building, commandingly situated on the top of the hill, surrounded with pretty parks and gardens, which they are enlarging and improving. The centre hall is circular, very dirty, and with a roof that leaks badly; the walls hung round with fine paintings: 'Landing of Columbus, 1492'-a very fine painting (it is difficult to believe that this country was discovered only about 400 years ago, or so); 'Embarkation of Pilgrims from Delfthaven, 1620'-also very fine; small portrait of Daniel Webster-rough-looking old boy; Surrender of Lord Cornwallis;' Franklin trying to persuade Louis XVI. to acknowledge the Independence of the United States,' by Healy—a magnificent picture; Baptism of Pocahontas, an Indian Girl' very beautiful; 'Discovery of the Mississippi River by De Soto'-the finest of all. Nothing else worth seeing. Everything dingy and dirty. As we drove out, we passed the marines-fine soldierlike fellows in light blue. Just then ran past those aforesaid ruffians, dragging a small brass cannon by a long rope, yelling, and calling them to come and take it. I remarked the hair of the fourteen presidents to be gray, with the exception of that of James Munroe and General Pierce -the latter lank, black, scoundrelly looking stuff. All sorts of curiosities are kept here: a Chinaman's tail cut off by a Yankee mate, who caught him shouting! no other reason being assigned for presenting it to the National Gallery; calf with two heads; Feejee idols (anything but handsome), and other lusus naturæ. A splendid collection of shells, finer than that in the British Museum, but in sad disorder. Looking out of one of the windows, saw a young man carried past wounded. Did not feel much inclined for, but went home to dinner. As I was standing on the steps of the hotel, a man passed by, whom Mr Kirkwood addressed in the following manner: 'Charlie, any shootin' up your way?' 'I guess so; regalar fraction!' A little crowd gathered to hear his account of the fight, of which you shall have as much as I can remember. No. 1 logr. They got a small cannon, and took possession of the market, loading it with scraps of iron and bits of glass. They then turned it towards the precinct (polling - booth), and kept away the voters. Wall, there was plenty of shootin', and then the marines came up, headed by Captain Tyler, a young man. So one fellow shot a marine through the wrist, and he fell. Then the marines fired and charged bayonets.'-No. 2: How many fell?'-No. 1 (laugh- OUR LIGHT CONTRIBUTOR UPON ing): 'I fancy I was round the corner pretty quick whenever I heard the "Make ready, purrr-sent." But they said five or six were down. One chap_fell dead just beside me, at least he was going when I came off They captured the gun.'-No. 3: 'How many killed, did you say?'-No. 1: 'Oh, six killed, I believe.' -No. 3: Thank God.'-Omnes: Amen!'

Citizen No. 3 is then heard in favour of peace and order. I must just give you a specimen as follows: 'What a set of gaw-dem rascals these Baltimore fellers is; 'sif we hadn't enough of gaw-dem blackguards in

I go up to my room and open the window. The heavens are one sheet of fire; sullen soughs of wind through the trees announce a storm; one mighty peal of thunder, and then the battle of the elements begins. Rain it is not to be called. Cataracts roaring, and lightning flashing, it seems as if the wrath of Heaven was aroused at this bloody scene. Half an hour, and all is still; faint gleams of lightning are dying in the west; but these demons are at work again, shouting and yelling, and piling up a great bonfire right in the middle of the street, opposite my window. Old tables, boxes, chests of drawers, are pressed into the service. A circular war-dance, a song with revolver accompaniment, finishes the proceeding; and all is still, with now and then an occasional shot or yell. It is impossible to say whether these shots are blank or not, but I suspect the real fighting is over for to-day. I enclose a newspaper account of the shooting, lest you should think I am Arrowsmithing. Now for an hour or two of sleep. Adieu!

DEODORISATION.

I HAVE lately been staying with a friend who is what he calls a practical chemist. He has, indeed, none of those large globular bottles in his window-the red, white, and blue which are the insignia of the pharmaceutical craft-because he is a clergyman, and his bishop, very properly, would not permit such an illumination. He is also obliged to confine the public offer of his soothing mixtures to that one day of the week

whereon his pulpit opens; and if he were detected in issuing quietness' at any other time, he would be punished. But he is not the less a practical chemist for all that.

He knows what to avoid a great deal better than what to eat and to drink, for upon these two latter points he is a second Dr Hassell, and describes all food to be noxious that is not downright deadly. Breakfast, according to him, undermines the constitution, dinner shakes it to its foundations, and supper, with pickles, brings it down with a run. What is one man's meat is another man's poison, says the proverb; but with my friend the P. C., his meat and his poison are one and the same thing. When I took my bitter beer-which, by the by, was hisand which I, of course, imbibed very willingly as often as I could get it, he was wont to say that I reminded him for once of Socrates in the act of partaking of the hemlock, with the difference that it was my ignorance, but the philosopher's intrepidity, which made us both so careless of the result. He used to name that amber liquid in its tapering glass with beaded bubbles winking at its brim,' by some Latin name, as if in exorcism, and to ascribe to it a volatile odorous principle, a greenish fixed oil, a free organic acid, uncrystallised sugar, colouring matter and gum;' but a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, said I, and I called it 'Bass,' and drank it all the same; else if I had been less like Sancho Panza, he would have played the very Dr Pedro with me. His own house, which is much too good a one for such a purpose, he makes the theatre of all sorts of scientific experiments. Ventilation is there so perfected, that it seems to me the wind bloweth pretty much where it listeth, and drainage is in full flow. Above the drawing-room fireplace, just where one leans one's elbows upon the mantelpiece to enjoy one's self in the glass, and just where the unprotected small of one's back occurs when we stand with our coat-tails over our arms and our rear to the fire, there comes breeze enough, through a great iron mouth, to turn a mill. The principle of the thing, my dear sir,' he has said about a hundred times, 'is as follows. . . .' and then he is the encyclopædia vice the pharmacopoeia, resigned for a little while. I think he wishes to persuade me that the air comes somehow through the fire, and so enters the room both fresh and warm; but if that is the case, why does it feel cold, and why do I get sore throat, or else lumbago, according as I present myself to the orifice frontways or the reverse? Sometimes a current of air would set in while we were at dinner-escaped from some north-pole contrivances of his down stairs -fit to carry our legs away, and then he would try to convince me it was all right, by reference to his thermometer; as if an instrument of that kind would ever persuade me out of a goosey sensation in the calves, and of a stagnation in my feet. But his strongest point, perhaps, is, or was, home-drainage. At one time, the great attraction he used to promise me, if I would only come and see him, was the perfection of his system of arterial domestic sewage: he said that it was positively beautiful; and, indeed, he was always pulling up the floors of his back kitchen and scullery, like some conscience-stricken Maria Manning, to investigate it. 'I would not mind going down into the coal-hole, would I? That's right; and I should be rewarded for it, that I might depend upon; the system was quite unique, and the principle was as follows. ... It was very cold work standing in the kitchen, on account of the proximity of the north-pole apparatus; and I really thought that the pretty waiting-maid would never have brought a light; neither she nor the cook could anyhow get the candle to burn; and if it kindled, it was at once put out again. At last we got our dip, and went down into the coal-cellar.

"The main pipe,' pursued the P. C., in a sort of
high-pitched lecture-room voice, you will presently
perceive to be rather more than six feet long, with a
diameter of Bless my soul, what's this?' cried
he, coming down suddenly to the tone of ordinary
astonishment. What are you doing here, fellow?'-
addressing himself to a very tall young man, who was
vainly endeavouring to conceal himself upon an
extremely limited space. Robbers! thieves!
are you?'

Who

'Please, sir, I'm only Mary's cousin; but she thought you might not like to see me in the kitchen, and so put me into this here coal-hole, out of the way.'

The main pipe,' quoth I oratorically, as we went up stairs together after this, 'is, as you have just perceived, rather more than six feet long, with a diameter depending upon the amount of cold meat and vegetables bestowed on him by the cook;' and that was the first remark which I remember to have ever made to my friend the practical chemist which he was neither able nor willing to controvert.

There was nothing more said about domestic drainage from that period; but my scientific friend has since taken up the public health, with all his old enthusiasm, instead, and thrown himself, so to speak, into the local sewage of his town. It is needless to state that he has attempted to drag me in with him also, and indeed not without success. I agreed to accompany him in a visit to the works which have been established for deodorising the sewage of Jennyville-containing 65,000 inhabitants-including all the refuse from its manufactories, and for converting the same into dry and solid manure. A private company has undertaken this business; but if that were not the case, fair Jennyville would be now compelled by act of parliament to do this dirty work herself. Our path lay beside the river and canal, which I have always considered to be the very foulest in all England, and most certainly there was great improvement there. To say that they were clear and sparkling, would be an absurd compliment to waters upon which the sun but rarely shines, and over which the smoke-clouds hang like a perpetual pall; but I declare they were positively pellucid to what they had been wont to be; while the fishes-of which I had never before seen more than one solitary poisoned tadpole floating bottom upwards-crossed and recrossed one another in the wholesome depths like lightning; and the cattle on the banks, which had been used to prefer any turbid puddle to these their native streams, were drinking for drinking's sake like lords or aldermen. It had been my former custom when passing along this way to hold my nose; but there was no occasion for this now, and I confined myself to holding my tongue and listening to the practical chemist. The ordinary quantity of sewage,' said he, with the lecture-room voice again, that is collected, pumped, and deodorised per diem in these works, is about three millions of gallons, or thirteen thousand five hundred tons; and the dry solid manure extracted is about eleven tons daily, being at the rate of about one solid ton to every twelve hundred tons, or to two hundred and twenty-four thousand gallons of common liquid manure.'

Presently, we were inside the great gates, and heard them locked behind us. We entered a mighty room, beautifully clean, wherein two spotless engines were panting and toiling like mad, and two more very oily-looking ones, doing nothing, were regarding them with aristocratic contempt. These former were pumping up at one and the same time the town sewage, and a mixture of lime and water-the great deodoriser-into one common pipe. From that moment, there ceases to be any odour from the surface, and surprisingly little even from the deposit itself.