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Updated: June 19, 2025
Next morning, new cones of rubbish appear, the result of the night's work, and the pollen-harvest is resumed for a few hours; then everything ceases again. And so the work goes on, suspended by day, renewed at night and in the morning hours, until completely finished.
Its yellowish green twigs are bright and cheerful, and in specimens that have reached the fruiting age the crown of cones, high up in the tree, is an additional charm, for these soft brown "strobiles," as the botanist calls them, are smooth and regular, and very different from those of the rugged pines.
Much of it has a specific gravity so low that it will float on water. Above the sheets of lava and above the beds of volcanic dust great volcanic cones rise, and the whole upper region is covered with forests interspersed with beautiful prairies. The plateau itself is intersected with many deep, narrow canyons, having walls of lava, volcanic dust, or tufa, and red sandstone.
"Did you ever play Jackstones?" said the Leprecaun. "No, sir," replied Seumas. "I'll teach you how to play Jackstones," said the Leprecaun, and he picked up some pine cones and taught the children that game. "Did you ever play Ball in the Decker?" "No, sir," said Seumas. "Did you ever play 'I can make a nail with my ree-roraddy-O, I can make a nail with my ree-ro-ray'?" "No, sir," replied Seumas.
It is interesting to note the differences in the cones, and in the way they grow; singly, in clusters, at the end of branches, on the stems, large, medium-sized, small, short and stubby, long and slender, conical, etc. Then, too, while the pines generally have cones every year, the firs seem to miss a year, and to bear only alternate years.
The average thickness of the trunk is, perhaps, about ten or twelve inches. The leaves are mostly undivided, like round awls, instead of being separated, like those of other pines, into twos and threes and fives. The cones are green while growing, and are usually found over all the tree, forming quite a marked feature as seen against the bluish-gray foliage.
Now, cast your eye down the centre of the island on which we stand; you see several cones of various sizes. These are ancient vents, supposed to be extinct " "But one of them, the one furthest away," interrupted Nigel, steadying his telescope on the branch of a tree, "seems to be anything but extinct, for I see a thin column of white smoke or steam rising from it."
The first of the coniferous trees which we meet is an odd-looking one known as the digger pine. Instead of having a single straight trunk it divides a short distance above the ground into many branches. The large cones are armed with long hooked spines, so that they must be handled rather carefully, but when opened they are found to be filled with nutritious nuts.
A broad, umbrageous mass of green clothed the lower buttresses, and fringed itself away in clusters of coco palms on a garden-like stretch below, green with grass and sugar-cane, and dotted with white houses, each with its palm and banana grove, and varied by eminences which looked like long extinct tufa cones.
In the Phlægræn Field there are a number of other craters of small size, with very low cones about them. These appear to have been the product of brief, slight eruptions. That known as the Solfatara, though not in eruption during the historic period, is interesting for the fact that from the crevices of the rocks about it there comes forth a continued efflux of carbonic-acid gas.
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