Ch. XIX.] GREAT ERUPTION OF ST YIXCEXT. 35f> 



a 



Those who will recollect that Barbadoes is eighty 

 miles to windward of St. Vincent, and that a strong 

 hreeze from east-north-east is usually blowing from the 

 former island to the latter, will be able to imagine, not to 

 measure, the force of an explosion which must have 

 blown the dust several miles into the air above the 

 region of the trade- wind. Whether into a totally calm 

 stratum or into that still higher one in which the heated 

 south-west wind is hurrying continually from the tropics 

 toward the pole."* 



I have quoted this graphic account of the great 

 volcanic eruption of St. Vincent in 1812 from Canon 

 Kingsley's delightful work to impress on my readers, in 

 more eloquent language than I can command, the fact of 

 great explosions having taken place in recent times 

 similar in character, though much inferior in extent 

 and force, to that by which I believe the great basin of 

 the Lake of Masaya and similar basins in the same and 

 adjoining Pacific provinces have been blasted out. I do 

 not shut my eyes to the fact that great as was the force 

 in operation in 1812 at St. Vincent, that necessary to 

 excavate the great chasm at Masaya was incomparably 

 greater. No one is more disinclined than I am to invoke 

 the aid of greater natural forces in former times than are 

 now in existence. But I believe there is good reason to 

 believe that at the close of the glacial period volcanic 

 energy was much more intense than now. So strained 

 is the earth's crust at some parts that it is surmised that 

 even a great difference in the pressure of the atmosphere 

 such as occurs during a cyclone, may be sufficient to bring 

 on an earthquake or a volcanic eruption already immi- 



* " At Last," by diaries Kingsley, vol. i. p. 'JO. 



A A 2 



