JUNE 26, 1902 | 
THE WEST INDIAN VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS. 
A FEW additional notes referring to the recent 
volcanic eruptions in the West Indies have been 
received during the past week. Sir W. T. Thiselton- 
Dyer has sent us an extract from a letter written on 
May 29 by Dr. Nicholls, C.M.G., of Dominica, and as it 
contains testimony from one of the leading scientific men 
in the West Indies, the statements it contains are of 
exceptional value. 
Dr. Nicholls remarks that the volcanic phenomena in 
both islands were somewhat similar, but in the ejecta 
from the volcanic vents there were differences. Thus 
the lava (and its products, viz. pumice, scoria, mud, ash 
and dust) thrown up from Mont Pelée was of an ande- 
sitic nature, whilst from the St. Vincent volcano a light 
-basaltic lava was ejected. 
Evidence of the hot blast which accompanied the erup- 
tion has already been given. One of Dr. Nicholls’s friends 
was a passenger in the s.s. Roddam. “When the red-hot 
hurricane struck the ship he was enveloped in flames, as 
his clothes were set alight, and in his agony he jumped 
into the sea, which was almost boiling, and was not seen 
again.” 
ture and the instantaneous destruction of life at St. 
Pierre, Dr. Nicholls says :— 
The eruption came suddenly and unexpectedly, and probably 
in a few minutes the 35,000 persons in the city of St. Pierre 
were corpses. It would appear that a sudden fissure was opened 
on the side of the mountain overlooking the city, and near to 
the Etang Sec on this flank of the volcano a large. vent 
belched out lava, superheated steam and acid gases down- 
wards on to St. Pierre and the roadstead. The flashing 
off into steam of the water imprisoned in the incandes- 
cent lava converted that lava into sand and dust before 
it reached the city, and the radiation of heat from molten 
rock at a temperature of above 1000° C, caused an incredibly hot 
blast that would create a red-hot hurricane—if I may employ 
such a term—that would kill people and animals instantly and 
that*would cause all inflammable matter to burst into flame. 
This, from what I gather, is what really happened, and I do not 
think that poisonous gases or electrical phenomena are account- 
able for the destruction of life. You can imagine what is the 
enormous heat right over the vent of an active volcano. Well, 
St. Pierre practically for a short time was in such a position, 
the vent being directed laterally towards the city until the 
fissure was closed and the volcanic ejecta were again directed 
vertically upwards. Many persons were actually burnt in 
places by hot scorie and mud, but the blast of heat from the 
volcanic vent appears to me to account in the only satisfactory 
way for the details I have obtained of the conditions found in 
the living and the dead. 
In connection with the eruptions, it is of interest to 
learn from the Meteorological Office pilot chart of the 
North Atlantic and Mediterranean for June that a year 
ago a report was received from Mr. Francis Watts, of the 
Government Laboratory, Antigua, showing that on May s, 
1gol, the schooner Aa/e, from Barbados to Antigua, ran 
into a violent commotion of the sea 32 miles east- 
ward of the south end of Martinique. There was no 
wind, and it was concluded that the phenomenon, which 
lasted four hours, was caused by a submarine eruption. 
The report is recalled as possibly bearing upon an 
early indication of the activity which culminated in the 
recent disasters. At 6 p.m. on May 9g last, Captain 
Hernaman, of the Royal Mail Steamer 2a Plata, when 
Too miles westward of St. Lucia, observed a green coloured 
sunset, and at midnight dust was falling on board. At 
10.30 p.m. on the same date, the ship Amaurus ex- 
perienced a severe submarine earthquake in 4° 38’ N., 
32° 28’ W., the sea being violently agitated, the shock 
lasting 30 seconds. 
The Daily Mail correspondent at St. Lucia says it is 
NO. 1704, VOL. 66] 
NATURE 
As to the cause*of this extremely high tempera- | 
203 
certain that there have been some changes on the sea 
floor in connection with the eruptions. He adds :— 
The colonel commanding the Royal Artillery and the colonel 
commanding the Royal Engineers at St. Lucia both saw an 
eruption in the sea off that island, the water being shot up into 
the air, accompanied by rumblings. This occurred two days in 
succession, and was noted by independent eye-witnesses. 
Also, at Grenada, in the little harbour, near the Botanical 
Gardens, the water bubbled up as in a cauldron and rumblings 
were heard, but at Dominica all was quiet. 
I may mention that when the Pad/as was at Chateau-Belair on 
May 21, with Sir Robert Llewelyn on board, I noticed a 
bubbling in the harbour just twenty yards astern of us, but it 
was so slight I thought it probably a vent in the bottom of the 
sea letting off steam, but I called the attention of others to it. 
Prof. Bonney exhibited a mounted specimen of 
volcanic dust from Mont Pelée at the meeting of the 
Geological Society on June rr. Notwithstanding the 
risk of generalising from a single slide, he expressed the 
belief that the ejecta of the Soufriére and Mont Pelée 
are generally similar. Both, compared with specimens 
from Cotopaxi, are more uniform in size. The travelled 
dust from the Soufriére is a little smaller than that from 
the actual summit of the Andean volcano, but coarser than 
similar material from Chillo (more than 20 miles), Quito 
(35 miles), Ambato (45 miles), Riobamba (65 miles), and 
the summit of Chimborazo, about the same. All these 
vary much more in size and run distinctly smaller, 
especially the last. That from Mattakava, Hick’s Bay, 
New Zealand (which fell on June 16, 1886), is rather coarser, 
more scoriaceous, with fewer mineral-fragments (especi- 
ally of pyroxene), to which a dirty glass is often adherent. 
The dust from Barbados, ejected by the St. Vincent 
Soufriére in 1812, is very much finer-grained, but 
contains the same minerals, though pyroxene is less 
abundant. 
The St. Lucia Weather Report for May states that, 
from the 15th to the 2oth, the whole island was enveloped 
in a light hazy mist, the result of volcanic ash suspended 
in the air. Traces of this ash could be seen on all 
foliage, it being apparently deposited more freely at 
night. 
The harbour master at Bridgetown, Barbados, has 
collected from captains of ships information relating to 
falls of volcanic dust encountered at sea, and the follow- 
ing reports thus obtained appear in the Agricultural 
News of June 7 :— 
May 7,8 p.m., schooner Vio/o, from Demerara, met 
the dust 70 miles S. of Barbados. 1op.m., the Norwegian 
steamer /a/isman, from Demerara, 150 miles S.S.E. 
May 8, 2.30 a.m., barque Jupiter, from Cape Town, 830 
miles E.S.E. Hour not stated, barquentine amy, from 
Pernambuco, 250 miles E. 
May 9 (?8), 4 p.m., ship Wozrovia, from Rio Janeiro, 
240 miles S.E. 
(Bearing and distance in each case from Barbados.) 
It is to be hoped that all the captains collected 
samples of the dust, and that these will be available for 
analysis, as it is desirable to ascertain the characteristics 
of the ash according to the distance of its descent from 
the crater from which it was ejected, the coarser particles 
presumably descending at the shortest distances, the 
finer at the furthest. 
Drs. Fleet and Anderson, the Royal Society’s Scien- 
tific Commission to investigate the outbursts, were due 
at Barbados on June 9. The Secretary of State for the 
Colonies had cabled to Dr. Morris, the Imperial Com- 
missioner, to meet them on their arrival. 
Reports have been published of additional volcanic 
and seismic disturbances which have occurred during 
the past few days. A telegram from Martinique on June 
19 states that a column of mud has been ejected by Mont 
Pelée and has fallen on Basse Pointe, destroying a number 
of houses and flooding the lower part of the village. 
