ping, and form miniature mountains, the lava running down their sides, like tar on the side of a barrel. Here and there are deposits of crystallized sulphur, peroxide of iron, &c., with dense, hot vapour constantly arising from beneath. Occasionally the lava falls in, leaving large circular holes, from 20 to 80 feet deep, showing plainly that the crust in such places is only about 30 inches thick. A vertical cleavage is apparent, but it is not regularly prismatic or cubic.

The lava of the basin presents the appearance of black satin, and is so fragile as to crumble under the feet, and being dangerous, the guide, who generally possesses less courage or more prudence than others, dissuades the visitor from looking into the molten lake to see it boiling, cracking, and flowing from the N.E. to the S.W., opening its blood-red seams, and rolling from one side to the other, carrying the cooled grey surface beneath its liquid redness, like copper in an immense crucible. The earth quaked beneath us, and gusts of sulphurous vapour rose above our heads. The size of this lake of molten lava, concealed as it was by vapour, we could not estimate. The distance of the liquid lava from the edge on which we stood appeared to be about 100 feet beneath us, and it ebbed or flowed every instant towards the surface, and might at any moment rise beyond its present limit, even to the height it did in 1847, when it poured its currents down the mountain slope, and penetrated some old fissure or channel of a previous overflow, and another island, at some distance from the shore, was thrown up.

In 1851 there was an elevation of 150 feet in the centre of this crater, which extended over the greater part of it. There were also several small cones spirting forth bits of lava and hot vapour. On ascending the largest of these, the walls were found to be only 28 inches thick, forming a dome, and covered to the base with silicious ashes, sulphur, salts of iron, &c. It was curious to see the lighter silicious lava drawn out by the force of the wind into fine hair-like fibres (Pele's hair). The specific gravity of this substance was much lighter than the black lava, and resembling frothy obsidian: it floats on water. Some of the lava has colours on its surface, like peacock copper or sulphurous coal; some is granulated; some has long white lines through the black, which is the general colour of the new lava.

On examining the crater of Mokuoweoweo on the summit of Muna Loa, I found the country level for six miles. It then becomes very rugged, the whole surface presenting the same appearance as a field of broken ice, and the rock assumes every imaginable form, even to the coiled rope on a ship's deck. Occasionally there are upheavals apparently from explosion, throwing the crust of lava upwards in fractured cones, sometimes leaving an orifice in

VOL. XXV.

their midst. There is also evidence of under-currents of lava which have left hollows or tunnels on their course down the mountain. The falling in of the surface leaves open caverns, which are sometimes filled with snow, originally drifted by the trade wind into these hollows, and solidified into ice, at about 11,000 feet above the sea.

The ascent becomes more arduous as we proceed; climbing becomes difficult and dangerous; indeed such was the roughness of the surface that some time was consumed in finding a space whereon to rest.

Large beds of frothy obsidian are near the summit. At the uppermost crater on the edge of its vast area, 784 feet deep, without the sound of animated being, the eye rests on complete desolation; and one is led to reflect that such may have been the state of our earth at its creation.

From the summit of Muna Loa the low land is invisible. Man stands there seemingly apart from the beneficent and luxuriant provision God was pleased to prepare for him. No Paradise is there-all is desolation; but in descending we see how the influence of the atmosphere dissolves the substances contained in the lava, and forms a fertile soil.

To the S.E. the crater of Pohakuhanalie is connected with that of Mokuoweoweo, which is much deeper; its walls being nearly perpendicular, and exhibiting 92 layers or beds, unintercepted by dykes. S. of the last-named crater there is another, the lava of which was so hot at the time of my visit that we could not walk over it. We came therefore to the conclusion that this was the seat of eruption that had been noticed a few days before.

1

XIII.-Account of the Proceedings of H. M. S. Enterprise from Behring Strait to Cambridge Bay. By Capt. R. COLLINSON,

R.N., F.R.G.S.

Communicated by Sir GEORGE BACK, R.N., F.R.G.S.
Read, June 25, 1855.

THE priority of discovery of the Prince of Wales Strait by Capt. M'Clure in 1850 and the researches of Dr. Rae upon Victoria Island have deprived the voyage of the Enterprise of much of its interest. Yet the fact of having penetrated farthest to the eastward and approached nearest to the spot reached by the Hecla in 1819, together with our extrication from the ice, and consequent opening of the sea between Point Barrow and the Mackenzie as a whale fishery, in conjunction with such geographical remarks as must transpire in the navigation of unknown seas,

will, it may be hoped, afford sufficient matter to the Society for a short paper.

Sailing from Plymouth on the 20th of January, 1850, we reached the Straits of Magelhaens on the 10th of April, and leaving the Gorgon to bring on our consort the Investigator, we proceeded through the first and second narrows, touched at the Chilian settlement of Punta Arenas, and reached Fortescue Bay on the 17th, the Gorgon and the Investigator arriving the same afternoon.

Thence the steam-vessel towed both ships into the Pacific Ocean, where we at once encountered so mountainous a sea that the tow ropes broke, and it became necessary to cast off one vessel. The Gorgon carried the Enterprise two hours to seaward, and then returned for the Investigator: thus the two vessels parted company, which were never again destined to meet.

After a long passage of sixty-six days we reached the Sandwich Islands, where I remained six days in the hope that our consort would arrive; then, deeming the delay certain to be occasioned by our communicating with the Herald and Plover would give her an opportunity of rejoining us, I put to sea, following the course pursued on former occasions by Capts. Beechey and Kellett, and running down my longitude in the Tropics, but advising Capt. M'Clure, if he was late, to take the Amoukta Channel. This course he pursued most fortunately, and while we were delayed by light winds and calms, he, favoured with a fine breeze, reached the edge of the ice eighteen days before us, and found a wintering place in the Prince of Wales Strait that season. We rounded Point Barrow on the 21st of August in a sea comparatively free from ice, but were stopped on the following morning by the pack, which was impervious. As it became necessary to retrace our steps in order to reach the land-water, and looking to the advanced state of the season, I consulted with the officers; and they concurring in the opinion that it was not practicable to proceed to the eastward this season, I determined to devote what remained of it in an attempt to reach the Polynia. We accordingly returned upon our track, and in the same longitude where Capt. Kellett the previous year had seen a promising opening, were enabled to get to the northward, eventually reaching lat. 73° 23′ N., where our progress was completely arrested; and at the end of August, finding there was no hope of the ice breaking away this season, I returned to the south. As a proof of the appropriate term of Pacific to the ocean which bears that name, I may mention that we sailed from lat. 32° S. to 73 N., going over a distance of 11,300 miles in 116 days, without ever once having occasion to reef the topsails!

Being aware of the capability of Hong-Kong to make good the

provisions and stores which we had expended, and that by resorting thither we should not have occasion for any assistance, and be enabled to revictual without the expense of hiring transports, I selected this spot to pass the winter; and reports being still rife among the Esquimaux relative to white men having been seen upon the shores of the Polar Sea, I availed myself of the offer of Lieut. Barnard and Mr. Adams, assistant-surgeon, to remain at Michaelowski Redoubt, in Norton Sound, where they would not only be able to investigate these rumours, but also to acquire a knowledge of the Esquimaux tongue.

I then proceeded to the Russian settlement of Sitka, where we were most kindly received, and obtained some useful information relative to the course of the river Kwichpak or Kweipak or Yucon ; the latter name having been erroneously appended to the Colvile, thus affording it a watershed nearly equal to the Mackenzie, whereas the drainage of this district falls into Behring Strait, instead of the Polar Sea.

Leaving Hong-Kong on the 2nd of April, 1851, we found the whaling fleet at the edge of the ice, near Cape St. Thaddeus, on the 1st of June, and immediately entered the pack, in the hope of finding land-water in the head of the Gulf of Anadyr.

With some difficulty we managed to push through up to Cape Chukotsky, and then, with considerable labour, effected our passage across to Port Clarence, where we arrived on the 3rd of July, and had to receive the melancholy intelligence of the death of Lieut. Barnard, who with the governor of Derabin (a Russian post in the interior) was killed by the Indians, thus depriving the expedition of one of its most promising officers, whose life was sacrificed in an attempt to open a communication with the Esquimaux on the shores of the Polar Sea by way of the Colvile.

Taking leave of civilized society we bade adieu to our friends in the Plover, and sailed on the 10th of July, meeting with a considerable quantity of ice, but no obstruction, until we reached Wainwright Inlet, where the "pack" did not admit of a passage for us between it and the land. While waiting for it to open we were beset, and after undergoing considerable pressure were carried gradually towards Point Barrow; on approaching which, we found the current increase in velocity, but the ship remained immoveable in the pack, and we were thus borne along by the current towards a mass of grounded ice, on which the Point Barrow natives had assembled, evidently in anticipation of the rich prize which was almost within their grasp. The eddy tide caused by the grounded pieces proved, however, our refuge, and it was with no small feelings of gratitude that I perceived none of the

* i.e. American.

floating pieces of ice touched the grounded ones, but were turned aside as they came up. This happened to us: at one time we approached within our own length, but by the merciful providence of God were again carried away without collision, in which case destruction appeared inevitable.

After passing the grounded masses, the ice slackened, but we made little or no progress until the 31st, when we reached the coast water near Point Tangent.

During the period we were beset, an opportunity was given us of observing the dispersion of boulders by the ice. Three stones the size of a man's head were alongside on a floe, when we were 10 miles from the land as there are no icebergs in these seas, these could not be torn away from the cliffs, but must have been embarked by pressure on the beach.

We proceeded slowly along the coast, contending against light easterly winds, but occasionally assisted by rain-squalls from the S.W., which sometimes raised the temperature of the air as much as 20°, and on one occasion came to our aid at an opportune moment. Desirous of extending our narrow lane of navigation between the ice and the land, we approached the latter too close, and in the act of going about took the ground, when one of these puffs occurring, saved us the labour of laying out a stream anchor.

We were twice boarded by the natives, who brought venison and geese, which they eagerly bartered for tobacco; and from a doll in their possession, which was part of a boxful equipped especially for our use by some kind friends, and therefore must have been received from us last year at Point Hope, it is evident that the natives of this part of the coast are in the habit annually of resorting to Behring Strait for barter. The coast line is fringed with low sand-banks, between which and the main are shallow lagunes, which seldom afford water sufficient to float their oomiaks. Many reindeer resort to these sand-banks, both for the purpose of avoiding ambuscade and escaping from the torment of musquitoes.

Although the navigable channel was sometimes barely wide enough to work the ship in, yet we met with no detention until our arrival at Point Manning, where it threatened totally to obstruct our progress; fortunately we found a passage, and then the effect of the Mackenzie became visible, the ice sometimes admitting us to stand 50 miles from the main, at which distance no bottom was obtained with 180 fathoms.

We were detained by light wind and a surface-current (which turned the ship round and round in spite of all our endeavours to the contrary) a week opposite to Herschel Island. At length a fair wind carried us past the embouchure of the Mackenzie. The Pelly Isles were seen from the crow's-nest, and two islets to the E N.E.