428 The National Geographic Magazine 



Museum of Natural History. Although 

 frankly confessing that I am not an un- 

 biased judge of the printed testimony, 

 yet it seems fair to claim that the evi- 

 dence presented is conclusive as to the 

 important part taken by steam and hot 

 dust in the sudden destruction of the 

 people of St Vincent on May 7 and of 

 the inhabitants of St Pierre on May 8. 



Downward J 'olccmic Blasts. — Inti- 

 mately associated with the destruction 

 of St Pierre is the direction taken by the 

 blast of dust-charged steam, with its 

 volleys of stones, which swept over the 

 city. The hypothesis that St Pierre 

 was destroyed by an eruption from the 

 ' ' Riviere Blanche subcrater ' ' being re- 

 jected, and the further suggestion, based 

 on the earlier reports in reference to the 

 opening of a fissure in the side of the 

 mountain, not finding support in later 

 evidence, the way is cleared for a better 

 understanding of the true cause of the 

 direction taken by the down-blast that 

 came, as now seems definitely proven, 

 from the fitang Sec, which is essentially 

 a summit crater. 



To understand the nature of the vol- 

 canic blast which destroyed St Pierre, 

 one needs to visit the region swept by a 

 similar eruption on St Vincent. The 

 volcanoes on these two islands have not 

 only exhibited a direct relationship in 

 the times of their eruptions, but the 

 surface phenomena exhibited by one is 

 the counterpart of what took place in 

 the case of the other. Happily on St 

 Vincent, however, there was no densely- 

 populated city within the radius of 

 greatest destruction. 



On St Vincent the region throughout 

 which the previously luxuriant vegeta- 

 tion, plantations, etc., were swept away 

 or buried beneath hot dust and stones 

 encircles the mountain. The direction 

 in which trees were swept down, and on 

 the periphery of the devastated area the 

 erosion of the bark of trees still stand- 

 ing on the side facing the volcano, as 

 well as much other evidence, show in 



a most conclusive manner that a blast 

 charged with dust and stones swept 

 down the slopes of La Soufriere in all 

 directions. The influence of hills at a 

 distance of some four or five miles from 

 the volcano in shielding the vegetation 

 on their slopes facing away from it 

 shows that the topography of the land 

 controlled, in a measure, the direction 

 taken by the volcanic winds. The 

 presence of a partially encircling ridge 

 or summa, on the northeast side of the 

 volcano, seemingly accounts for the 

 escape ' from destruction of a narrow 

 fringe about the northeast border of the 

 island. The outward direction that the 

 blast took from the mountain, its de- 

 creasing intensity with increase in the 

 distance it traveled, and the absence of 

 even hypothetical subcraters, all bear 

 witness that the heavily dust and stone 

 charged steam from the old crater near 

 the summit swept downward and out- 

 ward with hurricane force, in a similar 

 way to the more localized blast from 

 Mont Pelee which destroyed St Pierre. 

 The one conspicuous feature of Mont 

 Pelee which differs from an}*thing on 

 La Soufriere is the presence in the south- 

 west portion of its active crater of a 

 deep notch — the Fente or Terre Fendae — 

 which, as stated by Heilprin, has been 

 a conspicuous feature of the mountain 

 since the eruption of 1851, and may 

 have existed previous to that event. 

 This cleft is in plain view from St 

 Pierre, and during my visit to the dead 

 city one could look into it and plainly 

 see the ruddy cone of eruption with its 

 ascending steam column that was being 

 built within the crater. The area ren- 

 dered desolate by the hot blast from 

 Mont Pelee on Ma3' 8, and again swept 

 over by a similar blast on May 20, is 

 fan-shaped, the apex of the triangle be- 

 ing essentially at the summit of the 

 mountain. The coincidence between 

 the position and direction of the Fente 

 and the apex of the expanding volcanic 

 blasts may well be considered signifi- 



