The dead bodies of stags, tigers, wild boars, and birds are said to have been frequently found in the hollow; but Dr. Junghuhn, the author of a classical work on Java, saw in 1838 but one human corpse lying on its back in the centre of the bare spot. It was still there in 1840, and but slightly decomposed. In 1845 it had been removed, most likely by some compassionate wanderers desirous of giving it a decent burial, for not the slightest trace of the skeleton remained. During the years 1838, 1840, and 1845 Junghuhn visited the Valley of Death no less than thirteen times. When he last saw it, the bodies of six wild hogs were lying at the bottom, all more or less in a state of putrefaction. The crows that were feasting upon their remains proved that a descent might be effected without danger, for, on seeing them hopping about on the naked soil, even the Javanese entered the circle without hesitation. Not a single trace of carbonic acid was to be perceived, not even when the bold naturalist stretched himself out upon the ground and drew his breath in the crevices and rents with which it is furrowed. Probably the gas never rises more than three feet above the level of the soil, as at this height a luxuriant vegetation begins. This simple description of an accurate observer forms a strange contrast to the gross exaggeration of other travellers, whose accounts, copied in many hand-books, have puffed up a phenomenon hardly superior to that of the Grotto del Cane into something like an eighth wonder of the world. Loudon, who in July 1830 visited the Pakamaran (as the natives call the pit), swells its dimensions to a vast crater about half a mile in circumference, thickly strewn with skeletons of men, tigers, game, and birds of all kinds; and another recent traveller goes so far as to give it an extent of twenty miles. Next to carbonic acid, but of far less general occurrence, carburetted hydrogen, which gives rise to the wonderful phenomenon of fiery springs, is the gas most frequently evolved by volcanic spiracles.