felt during the violent eruptions of the volcano : tins has heen 

 ohserved on the island of St. C hristopher : and the great 

 encyclopaedia begins its article on •• voKanoes " as follows: 

 " Volcanoes are a beneficent device of nature, etc. etc.'" 



The buzzing sounds of detonations are not iirodticed by sub- 

 terranean ebullition, but they take place simultaneously with 

 the ejection of vapor and are produced at the orifice (jf the vent. 



The cinders or muds are the only materials thrown out by 

 the volcano. We have found neither lavas, nor even stones of 

 the smallest possible dimensions which could be identified as 

 eruption products. 



The geological structure of Mt. Pelee, as far as our incomplete 

 observations go, shows no lava flows : " for we must not include 

 under the name of lavas," says a geologist, "all the materials 

 ejected from the throat of a volcano such as cinders, pumice 

 stones, gravels, sand ; but only those which, reduced by the 

 action of heat to a liquid condition, form on cooling solid masses 

 the hardness of which is greater than marble." These lavas 

 e.xist principally in the vicinity of volcanoes which eject fire. 

 Now we find about our volcano only pumice, generally fragmen- 

 tary, and some deposits of cindery substance, in the middle of 

 which appear diorite fragments, torn out of the interior of the 

 earth in preceding eruptions. 



This geological structure of Mt. Pelee leads to the belief that 

 the earlier eruptions (which show at least two craters, the dry 

 l)ond and the lake above) have been of the same nature as that 

 of the fifth of August. Everything goes to show that this 

 \olcano should be ranked with the cinder, or mud volcanoes, 

 and not with fire volcanoes (volcans de feu). 



Compared with the common notion of the Soufri^re of Guad- 

 eloupe, what we have learned concerning the new vents of Mt. 

 Pelee is closely similar. It is probable that the conditions are 

 about the same in the case of the Soufrieres of St. Lucia, 

 Dominica and Montserrat. 



As to Guadeloupe, there have been eruptions several times, 

 notably in February 1837, and December 1846. 



These eruptions have always opened new fumaroles and 

 ejected cinders and thick mud. 



