TEE ANTILLEAN VOLCANOES. 273 



of calamity. The prompt charity was not emotional merely, but a 

 material outpouring of national substance; and it was no less rational, 

 as attested by the presence on the relief ships of a corps of scientific stu- 

 dents whose aim was to dispense knowledge with food and apparel, and 

 to acquire better knowledge against future emergencies. Measured 

 merely by mortality, Mont Pelee marks one of the darkest chapters in 

 human history; measured by the upwelling of human sympathy, it 

 stands for one of the brightest chapters; and measured by the prompt 

 and effective inauguration of research, it must be said to open a new 

 chapter in vulcanology. 



The destruction of St. Pierre on the morning of May 18 was one 

 of a series of episodes closely connected in time if not in cause. 

 The chain began with eruptions from the long quiescent crater of 

 Colima (western Mexico) late last year; then followed a series of earth- 

 quakes in Mexico and Central America, culminating in the shocks which 

 wrecked Guatemala City and ruined Quetzaltenango on April 18; this 

 shock was apparently followed immediately by steam spits from the 

 crater of Mont Pelee (the culminating mountain mass of Martinique), 

 which had been quiet since 1851, and also from La Souffriere, the com- 

 manding crater of the island of St. Vincent, which had rested since 

 1812. The steam puffs grew in magnitude, and before the end of April 

 there were several explosions, accompanied by rumblings and trem- 

 blings of the earth, in which jets of mud were shot into the air and 

 swept far a-sea by the trade-winds ; while the warm springs and solf at- 

 aras (or souffrieres) on Martinique and other islands displayed un- 

 wonted activity. The manifestations increased during the early days 

 of May, and Professor Landes, of the Lycee de St. Pierre, detected gases 

 of subterranean origin in the air and erupted material, and sent a note 

 of danger to the Colonial Governor of Martinique. Most unhappily 

 lulled by the memory of the innocent eruption of 1851, the official en- 

 joined secrecy, and appointed a commission of inquiry, whose report 

 did much to allay apprehension and keep St. Pierre crowded for the ap- 

 proaching holocaust. On May 5 there was a destructive eruption from 

 Mont Pelee ; clouds of rock-powder were blown high in the air, the rivers 

 overflowed with scalding floods and a stream of hot mud engulfed a 

 sugar factory — L'TJsee Guerin — with a score of attaches. Still the 

 Governor forbade the evacuation of St. Pierre; and when, on May 7, 

 the great Souffriere on St. Vincent exploded with a violence exceeding 

 all record, cables were broken and other means of communication inter- 

 rupted, so that St. Pierre continued to await her doom with hardly 

 ruffled composure. On the morning of May 8, Mont Pelee burst at 

 top and side with a terrific detonation; the earth trembled, and for 

 a few moments the people of the city and the sailors on the shipping in 

 vol. lxi. — 18. 



