On the Eruptions of the Soufridre and Mont PeUe. 429 



burn the clothes of those exposed to it. The burns on the survivors 

 were chiefly on the outer aspect of the arms and legs, and on the faces, 

 and confined to parts not protected by their clothes. 



Complete darkness now covered the whole north-end of St. Vincent 

 — a darkness more intense than any that the inhabitants had ever 

 before experienced. The fugitives had to creep along the roads or 

 feel their way along the roadsides. The roaring of the mountain was 

 terrible — a long, drawn-out, continuous sound resembling the roar of a 

 gigantic animal in grea*t pain. Fine ash and sand rained clown over the 

 whole country with occasional showers of large stones. Some of these 

 were so hot as to set fire to the " trash " roofs of huts in the south-end of 

 Georgetown, at a distance of 7 miles from the crater. In Kingstown, 

 12 miles from the Soufriere, the ash was at first moist but afterwards 

 dry. It had a stroug sulphurous smell, and pattered on the roofs like 

 a heavy shower of tropical rain. Around the volcano the earth shook 

 and trembled continuously, and the motion was described to us as 

 undulating rather than resembling the sharp shock of an earthquake. 

 Only in one or two cases were the walls of houses injured. What was 

 taking place on the summit of the mountain no one can tell, but all 

 who passed that night in the vicinity of the Soufriere agree that there 

 was one black suffocating cloud and only one. In all probability the 

 eruption had reassumed the ordinary phase, and the showers of ash and 

 stones were produced by violent upward explosions of steam. By 

 half-past 5 o'clock the ash was falling in Barbados, 100 miles to the 

 eastward, whither it had been carried by the upper currents of air in 

 a direction opposite to that of the trade winds. In St. Yincent the 

 darkness lessened slightly before nightfall, but the rain of dust and 

 the noises lasted till early in the ensuing morning. 



When clay broke it was seen that in St. Vincent, and even in 

 Barbados, everything was covered with fine grey ash, resembling a 

 fall of snow. The dust had penetrated into the interior of the houses, 

 where it lay in a thin film on walls and furniture. In Kingstown 

 there were stones as large as a hen's egg; in Georgetown and Chateau- 

 belair some had fallen as much as 1 foot in diameter. Little damage, 

 however, appears to have been done to growing crops, except in the 

 north end of the island. In fact, many believe that the sulphurous ash 

 had insecticidal properties, and benefited the vegetation. From Chateau- 

 belair it could be seen that the volcano was still emitting puffs of 

 slaty coloured steam, and showers of fine dust were falling on the 

 leeward side of the mountain. For several days these discharges of 

 vapours continued, but a new phenomenon now attracted more atten- 

 tion. The ravines which furrow the south side of the mountain were 

 found to be discharging clouds of vapour, and this gave rise to reports 

 of fissures having opened on the flanks of the Soufriere, of subsidiary 

 eruptions arising from these fissures, and of streams of lava flowing 



