December, 1902.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



2G7 



heat. Tile darkness was so intense that a man conkl not 

 see his hauJ. On the east side of the ishiud, a dense black 

 cloud was seen rolling with terrific velocity down the 

 mountain side towards the sea, flashing' with lightning, 

 es])eeially when it touched the water. All survivors state 

 that it was intensely hot, and was char'^'cd with hot dust, 

 and that it smelt strongly of sulphur. They felt as if some- 

 thing was compressing their throats, and as if there was 

 no air to breathe. The suffocating cloud only lasted a few 

 minutes, and by the time it had reached the coast, the sand 

 it contained, though still at a very high temjierature, did 

 not set fire to wood or burn the clothes of those exposed 

 to it. At some distance from the cloud, one observer 

 describes it as "a solid black wall of smoke falling into tiie 

 sea about two or three miles from us. It looked like a 

 promontory of solid land, but it rolled and tumbled and 

 sjiread itself out until in a little time it extended quite 

 eight miles over the sea to the west. . . . Then began the 

 most gorgeous display of lightning one could conceive. . . . 

 It was still bright daylight, but the whole atmosphere 

 quivered and thundcifd with wavy lines intersecting one 

 another like trellis-work. We were encircled in a ring 

 of fiery bayonets." 



Intense darkness now covered the whole north end of 

 St. Vincent. The roaring of the mountain was terrible. 

 Fine ash and sand rained down over the whole country, 

 with occasional showers of large stones, some of which 

 were so hot as to set fire to the " trash " rocfs of huts seven 

 miles from the crater. The eruption in all probability had 

 reassumed the ordinary phase, the showers of ash and 

 stones being produced by violent upward explosions of 

 steam. Shortly before nightfall, the darkness lessened 

 slightly, but the rain of dust and the noises lasted till 

 early on the following morning (May 8th). When day 

 broke, the volcano was still emitting puffs of slaty 

 coloured steam, and showers of fine dust were falling on 

 tlie west side of the mountain. A week later (May 15th) 

 the volcanic activity had apparently subsided, and the 

 mountain remained clear and unclouded until Sunday, 

 May 18tli, when a second but much slighter eruption took 

 place. The noises were as loud as before, the lightning 

 very vivid, and ashes and sand fell freely for some hours. 

 Clouds of steam were sometimes seen gently rising for 

 some days later, but no further outburst took place until 

 after the publication of the preliminary report. 



When the English commission arrived in St. Vincent on 

 June lUth, the Soufricre and the surrounding country to 

 the south of Chateaubelair and Georgetown were still 

 covered with a layer of ashes, mostly in the form of a fine 

 sand, mixed with spongy bombs and many ejected blocks 

 composed of fragments of the old rocks of the hill. The 

 latter consist of weathertxl andesites and andesitic tuffs, 

 such as can be seen in the walls of the crater, some of them 

 being more than five feet across. The larger bombs are 

 often black, highly lustrous, and glassy when broken 

 across. Some seen at Wallibu (four miles from the crater) 

 were three feet in diameter. The sand when dry is 

 yellowish-grey in colour, but when wet becomes almost 

 black. It contains plagioclase felspar, hypersthene, augite, 

 magnetite, and fragments of glass, and represents a fairly 

 well crystallised hypersthene-andesite magma which has 

 been blown to powder by the expansion of occluded steam. 



Owing to the heavy tropical rains and the quick growth 

 of vegetation, this deposit was rapidly disappearing. 

 Around Oroorgetown it was from one to three feet deep, in 

 the Carib countrj' four feet, while on the higher slopes of 

 the hill, where it had gathered in hollows, it reached a 

 depth of from five to over twelve feet. Those who visited 

 the country shortly after the first eruption described it as 

 having a smooth, gently rolling surface like that of blown 



sand. It is clear that immense quantities of hot sand 

 had rushed down the hill into the valleys in an avahuu-he 

 which carried with it a terrific blast, and piled the ashes 

 deep in the sheltered ravines, at the same time sweeping 

 everything oft' the exposed ridges which lay between. 



For some days after the eruiitioii the stream valleys 

 were level with their banks. But on May 2i and 25, 

 nearly eight inches of rain fell, and with this the rainy 

 season set in. After a heavy tropical shower, valleys that 

 were usually dry were occujned by a thundering torrent 

 several feet deep and twenty or thirty feet acrross, that 

 soon swept away the ashes from the upper part of their 

 channels. But in the lower valleys, which had been filled 

 with thick masses of hot sand, the process of removal was 

 still (in the middle of June) going on, and a curious 

 spectacle was seen after every shower. The streams, by 

 undermining their banks, caused land-slides, and when the 

 hot ash fell into the water, columns of muddy water rose 

 to about 200 feet, carrying with them pieces of stone, 

 while inimen.se clouds of steam shot up to heights of 700 

 or 800 feet, expanding iu great globular masses, exactly 

 like the steam explosions from a crater. 



When Drs. Anderson and Flett ascended the Soufricre, 

 there was the clearest evidence of the passage of a hot 

 blast laden with sand. Near the shore on the east side, 

 the sugar-cane fields were covered with three or four feet 

 of sand and scoriii ; the trees were all bare, a few branches 

 broken, but no trees were uprooted or thrown down. At 



Fio. 2. — Mont Pelee in eruption on July S>th. (The lighter- 

 coloured cloud on the right is the trude-wiml cloud which so 

 constanlly covered the summit.) 



this ])oint the velocity of the blast was not above that of 

 an ordinary gale, and the dust it carried, though hot, was 

 not incandescent. At an elevation of about 10 lO feet, a 

 further stage of devastation was encountered ; the fields 

 were swept bare, the trees broken down, though not as a 

 rule uprooted, their smaller Inunches swept away ; a deep 

 layer of black sand covered the crops of sugar-cane. The 

 blast was here a violent gale. 



A little further up, enormous trees, even great cotton- 

 trees ten feet or more in diameter, had been uprooted and 

 cast down, the fallen trunks in every case pointing directly 

 away from the crater. The smaller trees were sometimes 

 swept away like straws. Most were charred, some deeply, 

 but, as the wood was green, only the smaller branches had 

 been consumed. The effect was like that produced by a 

 violent hurricane, only more complete, for many of these 

 trees had withstood the hurricane that ruined St. Vincent 

 in 1898. Still higher, or above the 1500 feet level, there 



