Hawaii, which is the largest of a group called the Sandwich Islands, can boast of the greatest volcanic crater in the world. It is called sometimes Kirauea, sometimes Kilauea; for the natives seem not very particular about the pronunciation of their _l_ and their _r_; but where one uses _l_ another as pertinaciously employs _r_, while a third set use a sound between the two, as you may have heard some people do at home. Situated on the lower slopes of a lofty mountain called Mouna-Roa, or Loa (for there is the same dubiety about the _l_ and the _r_ here as in the former case), the crater of Kilauea is a vast plain between fifteen and sixteen miles in circumference, and sunk below the level of its borders to a depth varying from two hundred to four hundred feet--the walls of rock enclosing it being for the most part precipitous. The surface of the ground is very uneven, being strown with huge stones and masses of volcanic rock, and it sounds hollow under the tramp of the foot. Towards the centre of the plain is a much deeper depression. Those who have ventured to approach it, and look down, describe it as an awful gulf, about eight hundred feet in depth, and presenting a most gloomy and dismal aspect. The bottom is covered with molten lava, forming a great lake of fire, which is continually boiling violently, and whose fiery billows exhibit a wild terrific appearance. The shape of the lake resembles the crescent moon; its length is estimated at about two miles, and its greatest breadth at about one mile. It has numerous conical islands scattered round the edge, or in the lake itself, each of them being a little subordinate crater. Some of them are continually sending out columns of gray vapour; while from a few others shoots up what resembles flame. It is, probably, only the bright glare of the lava they contain, reflected upwards. Several of these conical islands are always belching forth from their mouths glowing streams of lava, which roll in fiery torrents down their black and rugged sides into the boiling lake below. They are said sometimes to throw up jets of lava to the height of upwards of sixty feet. The foregoing woodcut can convey only an imperfect idea of this immense crater. [Illustration: Crater of Kilauea]