322 E. 0. Hovey— Eruptions of 1902 of La Soufriere, 



which we were standing, and 2400 feet below the highest point 

 of the rim. The lake seemed to be shallow, judging from 

 some nearly flat ground in the bottom of the crater northeast 

 of the water. The surface of the old crater lake was 1930 

 feet (chart) above tide. Its depth in the center was STj- 

 fathoms, according to the statements of P. F. Huggins, engi- 

 neer, of Kingstown, St. Yincent, who told me that he sounded 

 it in 1896. His line was too short to reach bottom in the 

 northwestern part of the lake. 



Almost directly opposite the point where we first reached 

 the rim was the saddle between the " Old " crater and the 

 crater of 1812, apparently unbrokefi by the eruption. From 

 the lower third of this nearly vertical rock-face there issued a 

 strong stream of water which cascaded down the precipices 

 and flowed across a rather narrow strip of nearly level ground 

 in the bottom of the crater and emptied into the boiling lake. 

 It seemed as if this stream must be the discharge of the waters 

 now collecting in the crater of 1812, itself the possessor of a 

 little lake before the eruption of the present year. The 

 western side of the crater rim showed a gash on its western 

 side, leading into the Larakai Yalley, 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 Mt. Pelee, and 

 it does not seem to have had any appreciable, or, better, any 

 determinable, effect in concentrating the force of Soufriere's 

 volcanic hurricanes. Tremendous avalanches of rocks and 

 earth descended the inner precipitous slopes of the crater at 

 intervals during our stay on the rim. They made a great deal 

 of noise, and probably occasioned some of the " groaning " of 

 the volcano reported by the islanders. 



On June 4 Jaggar, Curtis and I made an attempt at the 

 ascent from the windward side. We reached the altitude of 

 3200 feet, but turned back without getting to the crater itself,, 

 on account of dense trade-wind clouds. On June 9 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 yards 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 in the ground there were crevices 

 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 3550 feet above the sea, we stood 

 between the large crater and the crater of 1812. The summit 



