44 Kansas Academy of Science. 



tastrophes recorded in history, establishes a new chapter in 

 the science of vulcanology, and illuminates a new page in the 

 physics of the globe. A mountain hardly more than Vesuvian 

 proportions, without lava discharge, without accompanying 

 earthquake disturbances, sends to utter destruction, in a few 

 seconds, a town and suburbs with a population conservatively 

 estimated at 30,000, of whom only two escaped and but one 

 survives. Eighteen or more vessels in the harbor were de- 

 stroyed by burning or capsizing, and most of the human 

 freight which they carried shared their destruction. An ex- 

 tensive region of fields and forest lands was blistered, singed 

 or turned into a desert, while torrential flows of mud and 

 giant boulders annihilated settlements lying beyond the direct 

 action of the volcano itself. . . . This is the story of the 

 catastrophe (cataclysm) whose exact nature is unique in the 

 annals of science." — Anglo Helptin, Fortnightly Revietv, pp. 

 475, 476. 



THE CARIBBEAN CATACLYSM. . 



"The explosion of Mount Pelee, on the Island of Martinique, 

 on May 8 (1902), whereby the city of St. Pierre was in a few 

 seconds completely destroyed and 30,000 or more people were 

 killed, is one of the most extraordinary manipulations of 

 volcanic power that have ever been known. . . , The Vol- 

 canic blasts' of hot gases and superheated steam, which appear 

 to have been the chief agents in the destruction of life, are 

 unprecedented in the history of such disasters." — Garrett P. 

 Serviss, Cosmopolitan, July, 1902, p. 357. 



I will also add that at the time of the eruption of Mount 

 Pelee I lived at Cibicu, Fort Apache Indian Reservation, Ari- 

 zona, and there red sunsets were distinctly seen as a result of 

 the dust particles hurled from Pelee into the upper atmosphere. 

 Furthermore, on May 9, before I had heard of the volcanic dis- 

 turbance, a sheet spread out on the grass in my yard was 

 noticed to have fine dust particles on it, which proved to be 

 volcanic ashes. I also saw in some paper later that such dust 

 was also detected about Phoenix, Ariz. 



THE ERUPTION OF KRAKATOA. 



"The first great (ocean) waves on the evening of the 26th 

 and the early morning of the 27th (of August, 1883) were 

 caused by a portion of Krakatoa being shot out northward 

 eight miles and dropped where we now have Steer's Island ; 



