Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 May 1885 — The Boiling Lake of Dominica.. [ARTICLE]

The Boiling Lake of Dominica..

A glan*ee into the infernal caldron that lies before us informs us that we are standing here at the mouth of a a still active volcano. The basin of the lake lies in the midst of a deep, steeply descending cup, the crater, to which two streams come -from the north. One of tho streams brings cold chalybeate ■water, and runs by the basin to unite •with its warm effluent; the other, bringing warm water, empties into the boiling lake. On the south side of the crater jgaps an opening in the wall ■which .constitutes the outlet of the lake. St is of quite recent origin, for it dates only from the catastrophe of 1880, in whidh the valley forest was destroyed. Previous to this time the area of the kike was about three times as great as it is now, when its diameter is only about forty-five paces. In the center-of the basin is a geyser issuing from* mound of black mud, which, •when we observed it, spouted to a height* of some fifteen or twenty feet. Other* observers have given it a height of from sixty to a hundred feet. In the interior of the mud-heap of the geyser we remained, whenever tho wind Blew the steam away, a kind of tufaoeous structure, of which we were not able to learn anything more exactly, Great masses of sulphurous gas escape .over the wrhole surface of the basin (from the black, muddy fluid, and keep up a loud roaring and humming, which * only heightens the dismal aspect of the whole place..— Anon.