246 R. T. HILL — PELE AND THE WINDWARD ARCHIPELAGO 



densing into general comprehensible language the volume of technical 

 details on which this larger story is founded. 



The Volcano Pele 



summary of the recent eruption necessary 



It is important to have a correct appreciation of the mechanism and 

 the events of the recent eruption in order to understand exactly similar 

 incidents which have been taking place through indefinite times past. 

 Inasmuch as the statements of the somewhat hastily published accounts 

 (in which there were also some discrepancies) have not been sifted and 

 summarized, it will be necessary first to present a brief resume of what 

 actually occurred in nature during the recent period of eruptions. 



MECHANISM AND WORK OF THE VOLCANO 



The mechanism of Pele (and of volcanoes in general) is comparable 

 to that of a mighty blast furnace with high internal temperatures. The 

 object to be accomplished in the man-made blast furnace is to decompose 

 elements or compounds into gases by the aid of high temperatures, which 

 make new combinations on cooling. In the volcanic furnaces, with the 

 increase or decrease of heat, there is an infinite series of changes in 

 physical form (gaseous, solid, or liquid) and chemical recombination of 

 the matter, finally resulting in the production of the familiar volcanic 

 substances which we see at or near its exits as vapors and slags. 



But the volcanoes which we actually see at the surface, with all their 

 majestic phenomena, are merely the chimneys protruding at the surface 

 above the larger actual furnace, which is deeply concealed within the 

 earth's interior. 



These visible parts are relatively secondary. They consist of (1) the 

 outer end of a conduit of some kind extending to the surface from the 

 interior furnace of the earth, surrounded by (2) an ash pile or construc- 

 tional volcanic mountain (like mont Pele) of long accumulation, com- 

 posed of a minute portion of the debris or by-products which have 

 ascended through the vent hole and which have been deposited around 

 its orifice. 



Reduced to its simplest statement, the visible feature of the mechanism 

 of the Pele volcano was the self-constructed terminal vent of the volcanic 

 chimney or conduit through which escaped the ash and gaseous products 

 of the real and essential mechanism concealed within the earth * 



* While the conduit of which the actual volcano was but the terminal vent which clogs up after 

 each period of eruption, which may be considered a passage or crevice leading up from the sub- 

 ciustal portion of the earth to the surface, it is not necessarily a definite open tube or pipe, but 

 rather a locus of extrusion above the potentially permanent deeper mechanism. 



