292 PKOCEEDINGS OF THK ACADEMY OF [1890. 



and from its base the land slopes some 300 feet to the bottom of the 

 crater. 



The lake in tlie Old Crater has been found to be about 100 

 fathoms deep (600 feet) making the depth of the crater about 1100 

 feet. It would appear to be about tlie same depth as the new 

 one. Whether there be an outlet, or whether sufficient time has 

 not elapsed since the formation of the New Crater, no water, save a 

 shallow pond some two or three feet in depth, is found here. 



As has been stated the Old Crater is an mile in diameter, and 

 judging by the eye it is a perfect circle. The New Crater is about 

 a mile and a half in diameter and quite irregular, a point to the 

 north rising to 4000 feet, which is said to be the highest point on 

 the island of St. Vincent. 



The first recorded eruption of the Vincelonian SouflTriere was in 

 1718 and has been described by Moreau de Jonnes. According to 

 him the eruption was preceded by violent earthquakes. Loud sub- 

 terranean noises were heard in the vicinity of a mountain which, 

 he states, was situated at the eastern end of the island. This out- 

 burst must have been the most violent that St. Vincent has ever 

 suffered, for besides the phenomena usually accompanying a volcanic 

 eruption, the whole mountain must have been blown away. This 

 statement of Jonnes is substantiated by the fact that no mount- 

 ain, or any trace of one, now exists on the eastern side of the isl- 

 and. The SoufFriere where the Old and New Craters are found, is 

 situated at the northern extremity of a ridge, running north and 

 south through the middle of the island, and from this ridge, the 

 land slopes east and west to the sea, the windward or eastern slope 

 being more gradual than the leeward or western, which is rugged 

 and precipitous. 



The destruction of this eastern mountain of Jonnes, probably ac- 

 counts for the diflerence found in the older authorities as to the 

 height of St. Vincent ; Scrope (before 1718) gives the height of the 

 island as 4,940 feet, while the present maps give it about 4,000. 



There seems to have been a slight eruption at St. Vincent in 1785. 



From the beginning of the year 1811 and lasting until 1813 an 

 area of over six million square miles was affected by earthquakes 

 and disturbed by subterranean noises. The enormous pressure that 

 caused these tremblings of the earth was relieved by the eruption 

 at St. Vincent, about the first of May, 1812. This area extended 

 from the Azores in the east to the Mississippi valley in the west, 



