274 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the roadstead began, to seek safety; then a gale of burning gas and a 

 rain of red-hot rock fell, and all St. Pierre, with fifteen of the seven- 

 teen vessels at anchor, were destroyed in an instant. Neighboring vil- 

 lages were blotted out; all Martinique was shaken; the detonation 

 rolled out over the waves two hundred miles in every direction; the 

 column of steam and rock-powder rose miles in height, and the dust 

 was scattered over more than a hundred thousand square miles of 

 isle-dotted ocean. This outbreak was not the end, nor even the cul- 

 mination; La Souffriere continued to belch steam and mud, and Mont 

 Pelee to erupt daily if not hourly, the explosion of May 20 exceeding 

 in violence those of all earlier dates; and the magnetic disturbances 

 accompanying the severer shocks were recorded in Maryland and Kan- 

 sas, in Paris, and according to one report in Honolulu. The long 

 quiescent crater of Tacana (Guatemala) was stirred into explosive 

 activity; the warm springs of New Mexico resumed the long-past 

 geyser form, and the crater near Grant, dead for five centuries, 

 steamed anew; Mount Kedoubt and neighboring craters in Washington 

 State resumed alarming activity, and rumors of fresh outbreaks in 

 Alaskan volcanoes gained currency; and the latest reports indicate 

 that Kilauea, in Hawaii, has joined the concert. These are but the 

 best-known links in the chain of sequence; it may not yet be affirmed 

 that this succession is more than one of time, yet it is significant that 

 the localities swept by the chain are all within reach of the magnetic 

 disturbances extending for thousands of miles from Mont Pelee. 



The eruption of Colima cost a number of lives not yet counted; 

 the mortality at Quetzaltenango and neighboring places is estimated 

 at 2,000 or more; the outbreak of Tacana is reported to have cost 

 over a thousand lives; La Souffriere slew some two thousand; St. 

 Pierre lost all of her 25,000, and other villages on Martinique some 

 seven thousand more; so that Vulcan's victims in a single province 

 during April and May, 1902, must approach 40,000. The number 

 will never be accurately known; for there are no censuses covering 

 certain Central American districts and some others in which the 

 fatalities were numerous. 



The lesson of Mont Pelee and St. Pierre is especially instructive. 

 The researches of Hill, Eussell, Heilprin, Jaggar, Borchgrevink, 

 Hovey and Kennan have already made fairly clear the external aspects 

 of the great eruption. Northern Martinique, like other West Indian 

 islands, is a labyrinth of mornes and pitons, i. e., of singularly steep 

 peaks and ridges (partly volcanic cones, partly erosional forms), 

 densely clothed with forests and herbage; it culminates in the crater 

 rim of Mont Pelee a little less than 5,000 feet in altitude, with a 

 sinuous divide extending southward and minor aretes stretching sea- 



