which are the different points on which we sat, and are plainly visible from below. Within, the lava is in the most rapid state of decomposition. The surface is hot to the feet, and the guides said it was dangerous to remain long in one spot: as it was, some of us sunk to our knees in the hot deposit of sulphur. Upon striking the ground with the feet, the sound is hollow, similar to what is produced by the same impulsion on the craters of Vesuvius and Solfaterra. I estimate the depth of the crater to be, from the highest ridge to the bottom, about two hundred feet, forming an easy and gradual descent. “The view from the summit is stupendous: we could plainly discover the whole form of the island, and we made out distinctly three or four of the islands, which, collectively, are called the Canaries; we could not, however, see Lancerotte or Fuerteventura, though we were told that other travelers had distinguished them all. “From this spot, the central chain of mountains that run from south-west to north-east, is easily to be distinguished. These, with the succession of fertile and woody valleys, commencing from San Ursula, and ending at Las Horcas, with the long line of precipitous lava rocks that lay on the right of our ascent, and which traverse that part of the island running from east to west, from their point of departure at the Canales, to where they end in an abrupt headland on the coast, with their forests, and villages, and vineyards, the port with the shipping in the roads, the town of Orotava, with its spires glittering as the morning sun burst upon them, afford a cheerful contrast to the streams of lava, the mounds of ash and pumice, and the sulphurated rock on which we had taken our seat. The sensation of extreme hight was in fact one of the most extraordinary I ever felt; and though I did not find the pain in my chest arising from the rarity of the atmosphere, by any means so acute as on the mountains of Switzerland, yet there was a keenness in the air, independent of the cold, that created no small uneasiness in the lungs. The respiration became short and quick, and repeated halts were found necessary. The idea also of extreme hight was to me more determinate and precise than on the mountains of Switzerland; and though the immediate objects of vision were not so numerous, yet as the ascent is more rapid, the declivity sharper, and there is here no mountain like Mont Blanc towering above you, the twelve thousand feet above the level of the sea appeared considerably more than a similar elevation above the lake of Geneva. We remained at the summit about three-quarters of an hour, our ascent having cost us the labor of four hours, as we left La Estancia at ten minutes before three, and reached the top of the peak before seven. Our thermometer, which was graduated to the scale of Fahrenheit, was, during our ascent, as follows: at Orotava, at eight in the morning, seventy-four degrees; at six in the evening, at La Estancia, fifty