THE ERUPTION OF PELEE. 223 



80° F. At midniglit two sheets of white paper were placed upon an 

 open balcony and in the morning, after six hours, these showed a film 

 of specks of volcanic dust. 



At 3:30 A.M. the moon appeared through the dust cloud with 

 a dim reddish-yellow glow. 



The next morning, July 10, at 6:30 the writer took a small steamer 

 north, along the west coast of Martinique to Carbet, where an excellent 

 view was obtained of the slopes of Mt. Pelee, with their newly deposited 

 load of dust and volcanic debris. The morning dawned with high 

 banks of cumulus cloud and a hazy sunrise; there were some light 

 showers. When the volcano came in sight, the usual dark dust veil 

 was seen lowering upon the ocean far to the west (Fig. 2), and the 

 summit was veiled in billowy clouds. From a point near Morne aux 

 Boeuf northward, the vegetation and the beach stones showed a coating 

 of gray dust, which became more conspicuous on approaching the 

 volcano. 



The slopes of the mountain, seen at first enveloped in a rain 

 shower, were steaming in two places along the Eiviere Blanche, and a 

 long streak of steaming deposits was seen on the high slopes above the 

 Eiviere Seche — the Eiviere des Peres was also steaming. The slopes 

 were covered everywhere with patches of light greyish-yellow sand and 

 gravel, hot and dry, which blew up in whirling dust clouds now and 

 then under the puffs of easterly wind. Along the water front, at the 

 mouths of the various rivers, there were occasional steam jets; the dust 

 clung to the cliff surfaces of the high rock walls, outlining the rugged 

 surface in patterns like a fresh snowfall on a cliff face in the Alps. 

 The greatest masses of dry deposit were accumulated in drifts along 

 the course of the Eiviere Blanche. This fact is important, showing 

 that along this gulch there accumulates in the course of a series of 

 eruptions a very great thicloiess of hot dry gravel and sand, which is 

 the cause of the violent explosions along the gorge whenever water 

 rushes down from above. 



At Carbet there had been a dust fall on the evening of July 9, 

 averaging perhaps one centimeter in thickness. There had been a 

 preliminary small eruption, earlier in the evening; the great eruption 

 at 8:15 happened quite suddenly. The scintillating lightning flashes 

 were observed at Carbet from the start; dust and small pebbles fell 

 shortly afterwards. At Fonds St. Denis, on the heights back of St. 

 Pierre, angular rocks fell of sizes up to three or four inches. There 

 was continuous rumbling from the crater noted at Carbet, and this 

 was quite distinct from the local thunder storms which developed 

 later. The eruption was watched from the beach at Carbet Point 

 by Mr. Gouyer, manager of a plantation at Carbet, and he states 

 positively that he saw no tornado or wind blast which struck St. 



