276 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



blast. In any event, steam, smoke, rock-dust, pumice bombs, and 

 great blobs of half-liquid rock shot skyward from the main crater, 

 with an earth-tremor of startling but not wrecking severity — and this 

 discharge, extending miles into the upper air, must have initiated a 

 series of atmospheric pressure waves; and about the time the heavier dust 

 and bombs began to fall, or just in time to meet the recurrent wave of 

 atmospheric pressure, the discharge of steam and other gases from the 

 minor crater occurred. Some at least of these gases were heavier than air, 

 and formed a black cloud which rolled down the amphitheater toward St. 

 Pierre; according to several witnesses cross-examined by Hill, it was 

 dense and black in front, aflame in the rear; and under the shock of 

 the recurrent air-waves above, it was driven down on St. Pierre with 

 such velocity that roofs flew before it like chaff, the lighthouse tower 

 was twisted and rent into debris, heavy cannon were lifted from their 

 carriages, and a 7-ton metal monument was blown forty yards; every 

 vessel at anchor was careened and most of them capsized, anchor- 

 chains were broken, and an off-shore wave was driven out of the road- 

 stead to return in a destructive debacle. Disturbed by the initial 

 quake, the people of the city fled to the cathedral or local shrines, 

 sought refuge in fancied strongholds, or ran aimlessly about; when 

 caught by the black cyclone, they were thrown against walls and amidst 

 wreckage, bruised and burned by the red-hot rocks pouring from 

 above, and suffocated by sulphurous fumes; then, when the gas-cloud 

 caught fire from its own lightning or from molten rock, every living 

 thing was scorched, seared or baked according to the local conditions 

 of the burning. Such is the picture painted by Hill from the testi- 

 mony of survivors of the Roddam and the Roraima, and of the parish 

 priest and others who looked down on the holocaust from the cliffs 

 flanking the St. Pierre amphitheater; Eussell ascribes less effect to 

 burning gas and more to scorching rock-powder; Borchgrevink empha- 

 sizes the evidence of electro-magnetic disturbance; but all agree that 

 the scourge of St. Pierre was fire rather than earthquake or Pompeiian 

 burial. The tragedy was not absolutely instantaneous; yet within 

 three to ten minutes, the thirty thousand of St. Pierre and environs — 

 Professor Landes, the prophetic scientist, and the misguided Governor 

 among the rest — were no more. Thousands of bodies cumbered the 

 debris-strewn streets or lay in the shattered houses until May 20, when 

 Pelee again thundered — and then buried the reeking wreckage beneath 

 a fresh layer of rock-powder. The later eruptions, like the initial one, 

 usually combined an explosion from the main crater with an imme- 

 diately subsequent one from the subordinate crater; and they sent 

 out clouds whose movements helped to interpret those of earlier date. 

 Thus, on May 23 Hill was able to study from below a gas-cloud like 

 that which fell on St. Pierre; and he was even able (after realizing 



