PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OE LONDON 



SESSION 1902-1903. 



November 5th, 1902. 

 Prof. Charles Lapworth, LL.D., F.R.S., President, in the Chair. 



John Brooke Scrivenor, Esq., B. A., Geological Survey of England, 

 28 Jermyn Street, S.W., was elected a Fellow of the Society. 



The List of Donations to the Library was read. , 



The Secretary read the following communication, transmitted 

 by H.M. Secretary of State for the Colonies : — 



' Curator, Botanic Station, St. Vincent, to Imperial Commissioner of 

 Agriculture for the West Indies. 



' Botanic Station, St. Vincent. 



September 5th, 1902. 



' Sir, 



' Cable-communications of the eruption of the Soufriere on the 3rd and 

 4th instant have doubtless reached you ; nevertheless I deem it my duty to forward 

 you by this the earliest possible opportunity an official report on same : — 



' Early on the afternoon of the 3rd instant telephonic communications reached me 

 that the Soufriere was agitated, and from the Botanic Station at about 2 p.m. on that 

 day I observed certain white and dark clouds in the direction of the Soufriere, which 

 from their upward movements convinced me that an eruption of the Soufriere was 

 near at hand. At 3 p.m., the hour of taking observations at the Botanic Station in the 

 afternoon, the corrected barometrical reading was 29 '947, and the attached thermo- 

 meter 85° F. The wind was blowing lightly from the north-east, and the weather 

 was bright. The only clouds were to the north, and the most conspicuous was 

 a dark brown column, apparently over the Soufriere. At 5.30 p.m. I had a conver- 

 sation with Mr. Nairn and Mr. Frederick at Montrose, and from the then appearances 

 and sounds we were convinced that an eruption was pending. At about 8 p.m. I met 

 in Kingstown Mr. H. Allen, Revenue Officer at Chateaubelair, who informed me 

 that during the day he saw a lot of matter ejected over the western lip of the old 

 crater down the Laricor or Roseau Valley to the sea. Mr. Allen and most of the 

 residents of Chateaubelair left that place late in the afternoon for places of safety, 



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