232 The National Geographic Magazine 



tremity of the island, overtopping by 

 about 2,500 feet an old crater in the 

 interior, which till recently was still 

 flooded by a "boiling" lake — that is, 

 heated by thermal springs bubbling up 

 from the bottom, and every five minutes 

 upheaving the waters in a foaming col- 

 umn. Within a short distance of the 

 margin the tarn was no less than 300 

 feet deep. In 1880 great landslips took 

 place, new craters were opened in the 

 hills, the columns of water disappeared, 

 and the lacustrine basin lost much of its 

 beauty. The fissures emitting gases 

 were continually shifting their position, 

 and the rivulet flowing from the lake 

 was swollen along its course by springs 

 of sulphurous water descending from 

 crevasses in the upland valley. 



The boiling lake of Dominica is a 

 great caldera surrounded by precipitous 

 cliffs several hundred feet in height, at 

 the bottom of which is a large valley, 

 originally reeking with thick white sul- 

 phur vapor, which turned black every 

 article of silver carried on the bodies of 

 persons who overlooked it. The soft 

 bed of lapilli that paves the floor of the 

 caldera is incrusted with sulphur in 

 spots, from which rises a mixture of 

 boiling water and steam, making a con- 

 stant tumult of noises. The waters — 

 white, black, and red in color — rush out 

 in a strong torrent, scalding hot. 



A traveler describes this caldera as 

 fenced in by steep perpendicular banks 

 or cliffs, varying from 60 to 100 feet 

 high, cut out of ash and pumice. In the 

 bottom of this was a giant seething cal- 

 dron, which raged and roared like a 

 wild beast in a cage. Toward the cen- 

 ter, where the ebullition was fiercest, 

 geyser-like masses were thrown up to a 

 height of several feet, not always from 

 the same spot, but shifting from side to 

 side, each burst being preceded by a 

 noise like the firing of a cannon. The 

 heat of the water was 185 Fahrenheit. 

 The height of the lake was a little over 

 2,400 feet above the sea. 



The volcanic phenomena of Marti- 

 nique, which are the subject of this 

 article, will be more fully described in 

 the succeeding pages. 



The crater at St Lucia known as Sul- 

 phur Mountain has an elevation of 

 1,000 feet and covers about four acres; 

 the sides are barren and covered by de- 

 posits of sulphur. In the days of 

 French possession a sanitarium was 

 built around the boiling springs of its 

 northern slope. 



This volcano, 4,000 feet high, is stilL 

 active, and in the chasms of its crater, 

 lined with deposits of sulphur, the erup- 

 tive matter is constantly in a state of ebul- 

 lition. Copious thermal waters bubble 

 up in various parts of the island and 

 one of the sulphurous streams still flows 

 through a half - ruined establishment 

 erected by the French before the Revo- 

 lution. This soufriere occupies the 

 floor of a steep crater cone and is pierced 

 by a dozen large calderas, circular in 

 form, 4 to 16 feet in diameter, each 

 boiling furiously, one with coal-black 

 water, another with milky white, a 

 third with gray mud, a fourth with a 

 mixture of all these, while the count- 

 less apertures, some barely an inch 

 across, send up steam or hot water in 

 noisy jets, and have done so since the 

 first memories of the earliest colonists, 

 nearly three centuries ago. 



ST VINCENT BEFORE THE LAST 

 ERUPTION 



That St Vincent is volcanic is appar- 

 ent from recent events, the relation of 

 which must be left to those who are 

 studying it, my recent visit having been 

 confined to Martinique. 



Before the present eruption the sum- 

 mit of La Soufriere, at the northern 

 end of St Vincent, was 3,500 feet above 

 sea-level, and had two craters. The 

 first was three miles in circumference 

 and 500 feet deep, and was separated 

 from what is known as the new crater 



