85 
lightning played incessantly, swept down the mountain side, 
destroying the town of St. Pierre and setting fire to the shipping 
in the harbour, so that forty thousand people are computed to 
have perished in a few minutes. Of all the inhabitants only a 
dostor, who was out at Morne Rouge, and a negro, who lay in 
gaol under sentence of death, are known to have survived. In 
another terrible eruption on August 30th, the suburb of Morne 
Rouge was destroyed in a similar manner, when, though the loss 
of life was only about a thousand, many hundreds were injured. 
On the previous day the Souffriére of St. Vincent had begun a 
violent eruption which lasted for seventy days, but culminated 
on the the 7th. The whole of the northern portion of the island 
was devastated, though, as there were no large towns, the loss of 
life was small in comparison with that in Martinique—from 
1,600 to 2,000 estimated. Both these volcanoes have been seri- 
ously active ever since, and it may be many months yet before 
the danger of fresh eruptions can be considered at an end. 
The lecture was illustrated by about eighty lantern slides, 
many of which were made expressly for the occasion from 
drawings and photographs sent by friends in the West Indies, 
as well as by specimens of lava and volcanic ashes from New 
Zealand, St. Vincent, Vesuvius, and other localities. 

