Note 54 — Chapter XXV

Since the above was written I have spent two months in the Hawaiian Isles, and have lived a never-to-be-forgotten week on the very brink of the great active crater. I consider that it is wellnigh impossible to compare the two scenes, and that in order to obtain a just idea of volcanic forces it is highly desirable to visit both—that is to say, such an active volcano as that on Hawaii, and such groups of geysers and solfataras as those of New Zealand. In the former, nature admits you, as it were, to her mighty arsenal, and suffers you to stand and gaze while she is in the very act of forging the strong ribs of the earth. There she shows you sometimes a vast lake of molten fire—liquid lava—sometimes dancing fire-fountains—sometimes all beauty, at others all awe; blackness of darkness, sulphureous fumes, fearful detonations; sometimes a column of fire shooting heavenwards, and falling to earth to pour down the mountain-side in overwhelming streams of fluid fire. Her finished works, too, the varied lava-beds, whether smooth or contorted, are unlike any other scenes in creation.

But nowhere on Hawaii have I seen or heard of anything in the slightest degree resembling the strange and beautiful objects to be seen in the volcanic region of New Zealand—which, like that of the Yellowstone in America, seems to be nature’s laboratory, where chemical experiments of all sorts are being tried on a gigantic scale, producing things of beauty in infinite variety.