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estimate its circumference at about eight
hundred yards. Its shape is that of
an inverted cone or funnel, quite perfect.
The edge or rim of the crater is narrow,
from which the descent or slope is
very rapid on each side ; the depth of the
crater from the highest part of the edge,
(which is on the southern side) to the
smair plain at the bottom, may be about
three hundred and twenty feet, and from
the western side, about two hundred and
sixty English feet. The lava which flowed
from Pariou to la Barraque, and thence
towards the plain of Clermont, is generally
supposed to have issued from the
crater, but had this been the case, the
crater would not have been so entire as it
is, and I am fully convinced that the eruption
of such a mass of lava must have
broken down one of the sides, as at Nu-
gere, which we afterwards visited, and the
Puy de Vache. There appears, I think,
decisive marks of the lava having flowed
from an opening on the north-east side of
the mountain, to which it may be traced.
Indeed on this side there are the indications
of a much larger crater, which has its
escarpements turned towards the Puy de
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