Though generally symptoms of violent disturbance, such as shakings of the earth and loud thundering noises, precede the eruption of lava, yet this is not always the case. Thus the craters of Mount Kea have frequently disgorged their masses of molten stone without such accompanying phenomena. In 1843, when the volcano poured out a flood of lava, reaching for twenty-five miles down its side, all took place so quietly that persons at the foot of the mountain were unaware of it, except from the glare of light after the action had begun. Through its progress no sounds were heard below, nor did it cause any perceptible vibrations, except in the region of the outbreak, and there none of much violence. The lava sometimes cools down with a smooth, solid, undulating surface, marked with rope-like lines and concentric folds, such as are seen on any densely viscid liquid if drawn out as it hardens; but much more frequently it appears as if shattered to a chaos of ruins. The fragments vary from one to hundreds of cubic feet, or from a half-bushel measure to a house of moderate size. They are of all shapes, often in angular blocks, and sometimes in slabs, and are horribly rough, having deep recesses everywhere among them. The traveller shudders as his path leads him over a lava-field, thus bristling with myriads of spikes, where the least false step would precipitate him into the deep cavities, among the jagged surfaces and edges. This scene of horrid confusion often extends for miles in every direction, and, viewed from its central part, the whole horizon around is one wide waste of gray and black desolation, beyond the power of words to describe.