294 TROCEEDINOS OF TIIK ACADEMY OF [1890. 



it was felt at Santa Fe de Bogota, nearly six hundred miles west of 

 Caraccas. 



One month and one day (i. e., the 27th of April) after the 

 destruction of Caraccas. the relief of this great pressure began. The 

 great smoking mountain of Guadeloupe lay quiet, the craters of 

 Dominica and Martinique were not affected, nor was there any 

 commotion exhibited in the St. Lucian Souffriere. The eruption was 

 so sudden, so rapid and so powerful that instead of clearing a way 

 for itself in the old crater of St. Vincent, it burst from the northern 

 side of that mountain and formed what is now known as the New 

 Crater. 



" A negro boy, " so a story goes, " was herding cattle on the 

 mountain side. A stone fell near him ; and then another. He 

 fancied that other boys were pelting him from the cliffs above, and 

 began throwing stones in return. But the stones fell thicker ; and 

 among them one and then another, too large to have been thrown 

 by human hand. And the poor little fellow woke up to the fact 

 that not a boy, but the mountain, was throwing stones at him, and 

 that the column of black cloud which was rising from the crater 

 above was not harmless vapor, but dust and ash and stone." ^ 



For three days and three nights the eruption continued increas- 

 ing in energy, until the island was enveloped in Stygian dark- 

 ness by the falling ashes. On the 30th, the lava came and, well- 

 ing from the crater, rolled to the sea, which it reached in four hours. 



The ash and scoria accumulated in such quantities in one of the 

 eastern valleys, that the Rabaca river ceased to flow, and its bed, 

 where water is now seen only in the wet season, is known as the 

 " Dry River. " Water constantly flows to the sea over the old 

 course of the river but it is hidden by the great quantity of scoria 

 lying in the old bed, and only after very heavy rains does it rise 

 above this porous material. 



The mass of material thrown out from this single vent relieved 

 an area of the earth's crust nearly as large as that of Europe. 



During the eruption of the Vincelonian volcano, subterranean 

 noises were heard at Caraccas, a distance equal to that which lies 

 between Boston and Washington. Not only were the inhabitants of 

 Caraccas terrified by the noises, but also those who were in the midst 

 of the llanos which cover a space of over 36,000 square miles. No 

 shock seemed to accompany these noises and at Caraccas and Cala- 

 ^ Kingsley's At Last. 



