March 13, 1903.] 



SCIENCE. 



423 



proper form for notes, suggestions for com- 

 putations, and the probable error of the result 

 are all given in a satisfactory manner. 



Altogether, the book is a careful evidence 

 of a thorough appreciation of the needs of 

 engineering students and of the comprehen- 

 sive knowledge of the distinguished author. 

 H. N. Ogden. 



Cornell Unu'ersitt. 



professor heilprim; on mont pelee. 



The twentieth century Pompeii in Mar- 

 tinique attracted men of science from all 

 points of the compass. Notes have been pub- 

 lished by Lacroix in Paris, Plett and Ander- 

 son in London and Hovey in New York, and 

 magazine articles by Russell, Hill, Diller, 

 Curtis and others have familiarized the public 

 with the main facts. Two books of note have 

 appeared, the one by a distinguished traveller 

 and correspondent describing vividly and ac- 

 curately a layman's impressions of the phe- 

 nomena and the wreck. The second, entitled 

 ' Mont Pelee and the Tragedy of Martinique,'* 

 is by a well-knovra. geologist and geographer, 

 Angelo Heilprin, and his work is the first 

 book that purports to be a scientific study. 



The book was published in December, 1902, 

 and the author had left the field only three 

 months before. In view of this fact the work 

 is a remarkable piece of rapid book-making, 

 well executed by the publishers, and illustrated 

 with half-tone photographs. - It is essentially 

 the journal of an explorer, with records com- 

 piled in the field of the disasters of May 7 

 and 8, and four scientific essays. The sub- 

 jects treated are the author's impressions of 

 Martinique, a description of the ruins of St. 

 Pierre, the narrative of the last days of the 

 city, the author's travels in the interior, his 

 ascent of Pelee at the end of May and his 

 second visit to Martinique in August. Pro- 

 fessor Heilprin personally observed the great 

 eruption of August 30, and from a distance 

 he saw the eruption in St. Vincent September 

 3. His experience in August is especially 

 valuable and unique, because at that time he 

 kept the only scientific record. 



* J. B. Lippineott Co., Philadelphia, 1903, pp. 

 336. 



The scientific chapters deal with a com- 

 parison of St. Pierre and Pompeii, the geog- 

 raphy of Mont Pelee, volcanic relations of the 

 Caribbean basin and the phenomena of the 

 eruptions. In the first of these Pliny's ac- 

 count of the Vesuvian eruption of 79 is dis- 

 cussed; Dion Cassius and later historians 

 refer the destruction of life and property in 

 Pompeii to ashes, cinders and gases. The 

 tumble of ruins in Pompeii has commonly 

 been attributed to earthquakes, but it is 

 possible that there too a destroying blast 

 annihilated the population almost instantly, 

 as in St. Pierre; this accounts for bodies 

 found in attitudes of action or indifEerence 

 to danger. Heilprin questions the decapita- 

 tion of Monte Sonnna at the time of the erup- 

 tion of 79; he calls attention to Pliny's de- 

 scription of the phenomena as follows : ' On 

 the land side a dark and Jborrible cloud 

 charged with combustible matter suddenly 

 broke and shot forth a long trail of fire in the 

 nature of lightning, but in larger flashes.' 

 And again, " I looked back ; a thick dark vapor 

 just behind us rolled along the ground like a 

 torrent and followed us. The ashes now be- 

 gan falling, although in no considerable 

 quantity." The similarity of this description 

 to that of bystanders in the case of the Carib- 

 bean eruption is remarkable. The fact that 

 Pompeiian bodies are largely without clothing, 

 and were huddled together in basements, and 

 that pottery and glassware have been found 

 deformed and discolored, suggests that there 

 was a hurricane blast and conflagration sim- 

 ilar to the one which destroyed St. Pierre. 



It is questionable whether the Lac des 

 Palmistes, on the summit of Mont Pelee, 

 was really a crater lake. Heilprin con- 

 cludes that the greater part of the water of 

 this shallow pool after the first eruption was 

 steamed off by the heated ejecta that were 

 thrown into it. These are in part angular 

 blocks of andesite, trachyte and diorite, with 

 here and there scattered boulders of large size 

 and composite character, representing the an- 

 cient stock of the volcano. This conclusion 

 is a significant one, contrasted with the sup- 

 position of Drs. Plett and Anderson, who were 

 sent out by the Royal Society, that a great 



