It
took us a full hour to cross this deep depression, and as long to
master a steep hot ascent of about 400 feet, formed by a recent
lava-flow from Hale-mau-mau into the basin. This lava hill is an
extraordinary sight--a flood of molten stone, solidifying as it ran
down the declivity, forming arrested waves, streams, eddies,
gigantic convolutions, forms of snakes, stems of trees, gnarled
roots, crooked water-pipes, all involved and contorted on a gigantic
scale, a wilderness of force and dread. Over one steeper place the
lava had run in a fiery cascade about 100 feet wide. Some had
reached the ground, some had been arrested midway, but all had taken
the aspect of stems of trees. In some of the crevices I picked up a
quantity of very curious filamentose lava, known as "Pele's hair."
It resembles coarse spun glass, and is of a greenish or yellowish-
brown colour. In many places the whole surface of the lava is
covered with this substance seen through a glazed medium. During
eruptions, when fire-fountains play to a great height, and drops of
lava are thrown in all directions, the wind spins them out in clear
green or yellow threads two or three feet long, which catch and
adhere to projecting points.
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