Here, the violent
action appeared centripetal, but with a southward tendency.
Apparently, huge bulging masses of a lurid-coloured lava were
wallowing the whole time one over another in a central whirlpool,
which occasionally flung up a wave of fire thirty or forty feet.
The greatest intensity of action was always preceded by a dull
throbbing roar, as if the imprisoned gases were seeking the vent
which was afforded them by the upward bulging of the wave and its
bursting into spray. The colour of the lava which appeared to be
thrown upwards from great depths, was more fiery and less gory than
that nearer the surface. Now and then, through rifts in the smoke
we saw a convergence of the whole molten mass into the centre, which
rose wallowing and convulsed to a considerable height. The awful
sublimity of what we did see, was enhanced by the knowledge that it
was only a thousandth part of what we did not see, mere momentary
glimpses of a terror and fearfulness which otherwise could not have
been borne.
A ledge, only three or four feet wide, hung over the lake, and
between that and the comparative terra firma of the older lava,
there was a fissure of unknown depth, emitting hot blasts of
pernicious gases.
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