35 2 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



FIELD NOTES OF A GEOLOGIST IN MAKTINIQUE AND 



ST. VINCENT. 



By Dr. THOMAS AUGUSTUS JAGGAR, 



U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY AND HARVARD UNIVERSITY. 



" So late as 1851, Mont Pelee burst forth furiously with flames and smoke, 

 which naturally threw the people into a serious panic, many persons taking 

 refuge temporarily on board the shipping in the harbor. The eruption on this 

 occasion did not amount to anything very serious, only covering some hundreds 

 of acres with sulphurous debris, yet serving to show that the volcano was not 

 dead, but sleeping. Once or twice since that date ominous mutterings have 

 been heard from Mont Pelee, which it is confidently predicted will one day 

 deluge St. Pierre with ashes and lava, repeating the story of Pompeii." M. M. 

 Ballou in ' Equatorial America,' Houghton, Mifflin, 1892. 



r I ^HE extraordinary accuracy of the above prediction, printed ten 

 -*- years ago, has been forced upon the world's attention recently by 

 the sad story that the newspapers have told of the volcanic disasters in 

 the Caribbee Islands. The following notes and the accompanying illus- 

 trations were collected hastily in the field after a month spent in incom- 

 plete study of the two volcanoes and their effects. Such notes neces- 

 sarily contain inaccuracies; they may be more accurate, however, than 

 many of the fairy stories that have gained currency in the dailies, and 

 if I succeed in correcting some false impressions that have gone abroad 

 about the meaning of these eruptions from the scientist's standpoint, I 

 shall accomplish all that is necessary prior to more complete and accu- 

 rate publication as the product of laboratory research at home. When 

 the first news of the explosions reached America the newspaper accounts 

 proved marvel ously accurate; when half a hundred correspondents 

 reached the field the degree of accuracy waned — probably directly as the 

 public interest, which needs fiction to keep it alive. It is to be hoped 

 that when the magazine stage of recording the Caribbean eruptions is 

 reached, the truth curve will rise once more and the facts assert them- 

 selves. Even here — I write from Barbados — the most remarkable state- 

 ments are solemnly believed; victims were found with their intestines 

 charred and the outer skin untouched; a man was found seated on the 

 box seat of a carriage in a lifelike position, twirling his moustache ; sci- 

 entists assert that the whole island of Martinique is likely to blow up at 

 any minute, and great rents traverse the island from end to end; St. 

 Vincent is in flames, a hundred minor craters have broken out, not a 

 living green plant persists on the island and vessels cannot land ; Ameri- 



