No. 445.] 



ERUPTION OF MOUNT PELEE. 



55 



Riviere Blanche, no longer deserving its name of "clear." At 

 the bottom of the ravine where we were, the Riviere Claire forms 

 a cascade 2 or 3 meters high : it is only a brook that one can 

 easily jump over. Its banks were covered with from 15 to 20 

 centimeters of mud. The water has ceased to be drinkable. 



After having crossed the bed of the Riviere Claire, it became 

 necessary to climb the opposite slope which is a ver)' abrupt 

 escarpment, where the first explorers had to construct a path, by 

 means of a ladder of ropes and lianas : for a half-hour one goes 

 upstairs in this fashion. The slope becomes easier and we are 

 in virgin forest. There is no path. In order to advance in the 

 direction of the hill one must push through palms, and tree-ferns, 

 the long spines of which make treacherous support. This is 

 the forest zone called the "little woods" in the colonies as 

 opposed to the "great woods" where there are great trees 

 remarkable for their height and the size of their trunks. About 

 ten o'clock we reached the point where the first traces of the 

 eruption were visible. The foliage of the ferns, bananas and 

 other plants which form the vegetation of these places was dried 

 and reddened as if it had been burned ; on the leaves and on the 

 soil also there was a thin layer of dried mud, the remains of 

 volcanic ejections. Here the barometer registered a height of 

 •846 meters. From there on the volcanic mud became more and 

 more abundant. It covers the leaves in a dry adherent mass, 

 and on the ground it is viscous and sticky and appears like a 

 gray clay, in some places more than a foot thick : little scintil- 

 lating points may be distinguished on the surface which the 

 lens, and later a chemical analysis, showed to be globules of iron 

 sulphide. As we had noticed that the leaves, branches and 

 trunks of trees were plastered with mud only on the side toward 

 the volcano, we thought at first that the weight of the mud was 

 sufficient to explain the inclination of all these objects ; they 

 seemed to be depressed violently, but the quantity of mud on 

 the leaves was only a few millimeters thick and not sufficient to 

 break the branches ; we soon saw that something more than the 

 weight of mud must be called in to account for the disorder, 

 and a sort of chaos through which it soon became necessary to 

 thread our way. Here were great trees broken, overturned. 



