274 E. 0. Homy— New Cone of Mont FeU. 



" polished," was the absorbing feature in the view of the new 

 cone from the crater rim beside Morne Lacroix ;* this tooth 

 was only beginning to be noticeable three. weeks before. At 

 the end of March, 1903, the French Commissionf deter- 

 mined the apex of the spine to be 1,568 meters (5,143 feet) 

 above the sea, or 338 meters (1,109 feet) higher than the 

 remains of Morne Lacroix, but in the meantime there had 

 been a period when the cone had reached nearly this maximum 

 and had fallen again. After each considerable explosion the 

 cone is seen to have changed more or less. Portions have 

 fallen off and the altitude has usually diminished. One of the 

 heaviest eruptions which have occurred since August, 1902, 

 took place at 6:12 p. m., March 26, 1903. The next morning 

 Captain Perney, at Morne des Cadets, found that the apex of 

 the spine was 25 meters (82 feet) lower than before the out- 

 burst. In April the official bulletins of the commission record 

 a further loss of six or seven meters. In the early part of 

 May, there was a recovery of a portion of the lost altitude, but 

 during the night of the 30th, fifty meters of height disappeared 

 from the spine. The feeble activity of June, however, restored 

 twenty-five meters of the loss. 



The profiles reproduced herewith as figures 2 and 3 show 

 the appearance of Mont Pele as seen from Morne Fortune, the 

 barracks of the British regiment stationed at Castries, St. 

 Lucia. The observations were made by Major W. M. Hodder 

 of the Koyal Engineer Corps at favorable times from I^ovem- 

 ber, 1 902, to April, 1903, and supplement so well the history 

 of the cone as given above that they are published here, with 

 Major Hodder's permission. Morne Fortune, at St. Lucia, is 

 fifty nautical miles from the cone of Mont Pele, but the clear 

 atmosphere which prevails occasionally enables the taking of 

 satisfactory observations. 



Quoting substantially from Major Hodder's letter of April 

 18, 1903, regarding these sections : " Morne Fortune [the point 

 from which the observations were made] is 835 feet above sea 

 level. We first saw the cone [spine] clearly on 26 JSIovem- 

 ber, 1902 [see fig. 2], when I fancy it had attained its maxi- 

 mum. We saw it again just before Christmas, but I could 

 not measure it. It had become obviously lower, and wider at 

 base. I got excellent observations during the first nine days 

 in January, during which time the cone was visibly altering. 

 After that we did not see it again until 4 March, 1903. [See 

 fig. 3.] We had heard that during February the cone had 

 been almost destroyed. You will observe that in the second 



*A, Lacroix in Journal Officiel de la Martinique, November 22 (?), 1902. 

 Quoted from a reprint. 



f Lacroix, La Depeche Coloniale (Paris), April 30, 1903, p. 98. 



