438 



Dr. Tempest Anderson and Dr. J. S. Flett. 



Accurate measurements of the breadth, or depth of the crater were, 

 under the circumstances, impossible. As seen from Chateaubelair the 

 outline of the lip of the crater has suffered many modifications, though 

 none of these is of any great importance. It is agreed that the 

 southern edge is now somewhat lower than it was before the erup- 

 tion, and this is confirmed by our barometric measurements. 



It is reported that since we left St. Vincent the amount of water 

 in the crater has increased, and, should this continue, a lake will ulti- 

 mately be formed not unlike that which previously existed there. 

 When the cliffs which form the north wall have reached, by repeated 

 rock-falls, a condition of adjustment and stability, and when vegeta- 

 tion has again covered the interior slopes, it is possible that the crater 

 of the Soufriere will have regained very much of its old appearance. 

 Should any one who knew it before then return to visit it, he will have 

 difficulty in believing that it formed the orifice from which were 

 emitted the tremendous explosions of May 7, 1902. It was as we saw 

 it an impressive spectacle, its naked rugged walls of rock looking 

 down on the steaming lakes below. 



Apart from the changes which have taken place within the crater, 

 and the deposits of ash which have formed in the river valleys, and on 

 the surface of the hill, the only other important geological modification 

 of the country has been the disappearance of a narrow strip of coast 

 along the leeward side of the island. Near the mouth of the Wallibu 

 and from thence northward to Morne Ronde, the sea has encroached on 

 the land for perhaps 200 yards. Below Wallibu plantation there stood 

 a village of labourers' huts on a low flat beach with a bluff behind. 

 Here the sea now washes the foot of a cliff some 30 feet high. This 

 cliff consists of soft tuffs covered with several feet of new hot ashes, 

 and is in an unstable condition, as masses are constantly falling down 

 from its face. In this way a new beach is now forming in front of it. 

 It is agreed by those who knew the district before the eruption that 

 not only has the old beach disappeared, which carried the village and 

 the public road, but that part of the bluff behind has also subsided. 

 We were informed by Mr. T. M. McDonald, who is intimately 

 acquainted with this coast-line, that similar subsidences had also 

 taken place, though on a much smaller scale, at several places further 

 north. There is no evidence elsewhere of any changes of level of 

 land and sea. The tide-marks on the rocks and the landing-stages 

 at the villages enabled us to ascertain that the level of high-water 

 was at any rate within a few inches of what it had been before. 

 It was clear that the alterations in the coast line were due to local 

 subsidence of the foreshores, and that they had mostly affected loose 

 and ill-consolidated deposits, such as beach gravels and the fans of 

 alluvium which had formed at the mouths of the streams. 



The submarine slopes on the leeward side of St. Vincent are 



