eight o’clock in the morning
The temperature was low beyond previous experience ; but well muffled up in fur , they all endured it without much actual suffering . Their breath issued in vapor , which was at once congealed into little crystals upon their whiskers , beards , eyebrows , and eyelashes , until their faces , covered with countless snow-white prickles , were truly ludicrous . The little professor , most comical of all , resembled nothing so much as the cub of an Arctic bear . It was eight o'clock in the morning . The sun was rapidly approaching the zenith ; but its disc , from the extreme remoteness , was proportionately dwarfed ; its beams being all but destitute of their proper warmth and radiance . The volcano to its very summit and the surrounding rocks were still covered with the unsullied mantle of snow that had fallen while the atmosphere was still to some extent charged with vapor ; but on the north side the snow had given place to the cascade of fiery lava , which , making its way down the sloping rocks as far as the vaulted opening of the central cavern , fell thence perpendicularly into the sea . Above the cavern , 130 feet up the mountain , was a dark hole , above which the stream of lava made a bifurcation in its course .