The Eruptions of La Soufriere 



449 



•cone and sent a stream of lava out to 

 windward. At the close of that erup- 

 tion the lava filled up the breach, and 

 subsequent eruptions sent flows of lava 

 and threw beds of ash over it. 



The western side of the crater rim 

 showed a gash leading into the Larakai 

 Valley, but the bottom of the gash was 

 more than a thousand feet above the 

 bottom of the crater. Mr MacDonald 

 said that the gash was there before the 

 eruption took place, but that it seemed 

 to him to have increased in size since 

 the outbursts began. The gash is very 

 much smaller than that in the southwest 

 side of Mont Pelee, and it does not seem 

 to have had any determinable effect in 

 concentrating the force of Soufriere's 

 volcanic hurricanes.* 



On June 4 Messrs Jaggar, Curtis, and 

 I made an attempt at the ascent from 

 the windward side. We reached the 

 altitude of 3,200 feet, but turned back 

 without getting to the crater itself, on 

 account of the dense trade-wind clouds. 

 Dr Jaggar felt obliged to leave St Vin- 

 cent on the next day, but Mr Curtis 

 and I remained at Georgetown to study 

 the coast line and the Rabaka Dry River 

 and to try the Soufriere again. On 

 June 9 Mr Curtis and I made our third 

 ascent, alone, except for one guide, and 

 reached the rim of the crater on the 

 southeastern side two or three hundred 

 3'ards beyond the spot at which we had 

 turned back on the preceding occasion. 

 For fifteen or twenty yards back from 

 the edge of the rim there were crevices 

 in the ground many yards long and up 

 to three inches wide, which formed 

 lenses with the edge itself and indicated 

 the imminence of landslides into the 

 -crater. We pushed along the rim north- 

 ward until, at an altitude of 3,550 feet 



* The reports (communicated to me by Mr 

 MacDonald) of persons who have visited the 

 summit of the mountain since the great erup- 

 tions of September indicate a further enlarge- 

 ment of this gash, and some "notching" or 

 lessening in height of the saddle between the 

 large crater and the crater of 1S12. 



(aneroid) above the sea, we stood be- 

 tween the large crater and the crater of 

 1812. 



The summit of La Soufriere east of 

 the large crater and south of the small 

 one is formed by a rather small plateau 

 which slopes gently toward the south- 

 east, closely analogous in position to the 

 small plateau on the eastern summit of 

 Mont Pelee which was the site of the 

 Lac des Palmistes. This plateau was 

 covered with a bed of dust, lapilli, 

 bombs, and ejected blocks which was 

 ten to fifteen feet thick in places, and 

 the trenches cut by recent rains made 

 traveling very laborious, except near 

 the edge of the crater. The rim imme- 

 diately above the most active portion of 

 the great crater (its southeastern quar- 

 ter) was precipitous and almost over- 

 hanging. Steam seemed to issue from 

 it almost up to the very edge of the 

 plateau. The steam smelled of sulphur 

 gases. 



In spite of clouds and rain, this visit, 

 through occasional glimpses of the in- 

 terior, led me to the conclusion that the 

 crater of 1812, which for nearly a cen- 

 tury has gone by the name of the 

 " New" crater, took no active part in 

 the eruptions of May of the present 

 year, an inference based on the follow- 

 ing considerations: The saddle between 

 the two craters appeared to be intact, 

 confirming the observation made from 

 the other side of the large crater ; a 

 knife-edge ridge which ran at a steep 

 incline from the saddle to the bottom 

 of the small crater and formed the path- 

 way for descent into it before the erup- 

 tion was still there and had on its slopes 

 bare trunks of trees standing ; in the 

 bottom of the crater along the base of 

 this ridge we could see talus slopes of 

 dry (?) dust and lapilli which had slid 

 and rolled down its sides ; although the 

 roaring of the steam and boiling water 

 nearly half a mile below us in the large 

 crater was obtrusively discernible, no 

 sound whatever came from within the 



