SOFFRIERE, AND ON A VISIT TO MONTAONE PELEE, IN 1902. 
077 
o( / 
really a knife-edge like that of the spurs between the valleys) were steep, averaging 
30° to 40°, and were furrowed by rivulet channels which were shallow, especially near 
the summit of the ridge.The water descending to the interior had gathered to form 
a large lake, rather more than half a mile across, with an outline which was approxi¬ 
mately circular. The funnel shape of the crater walls was due to erosion Ijy running 
water and to the action of landslips, and not to the accumulation of cinders and loose 
ejecta at the angle of repose for such material. If beds of ash dipping inwards had 
ever cloaked these slopes, they had been entirely removed, for, from tlie descriptions 
of those familiar with the crater lake and from photographs, it is certain that it 
consisted of lavas and tuffs dipping outwards on all sides, and presenting escarpments 
and talus-covered edges to the interior cavity. It is more likely, however, that the 
crater walls had been in large j^art vertical cliffs which had reached a condition of 
stability by rej^eated rock falls and continued erosion. 
These rain-furrowed slopes were covered with bush and short timber, Init it was a 
matter of no very great difficulty to descend them to the shores of the lake, though 
in one or two places the lava sheets formed low vertical escarpments. 
The water of the lake was greenish and opalescent, prol^ably from finely-divided 
particles of precipitated sulphur.t It smelt strongly of sulphuretted hydrogen, 
especially on a hot day (hence the name Soufriere), ljut was not warm or even tepid, 
and the adventurous occasionally bathed in the lake. The level of the surface is 
given on the chart as 1930 feet, so that the southern wall was 1100 feet high, 
and the northern about 1700 feet. Probably the amount of water vaiied slightly 
with the season of the year. There was no outlet, but the excess of rainfall over 
evaporation leaked away through the bedding planes and joints of the surrounding 
rocks. 
The depth of this lake is not very accurately known. Mr. P. Foster Huggixs,| 
in 1896, built a small raft of logs and made a series of soundings of the crater lake 
in that and succeeding years. He found the depth at the centre to be 87T fathoms, 
and believes that to the north of this it would have been found to l)e still greater, 
but he was never able to complete his soundings in that quarter. Tlie underwater 
slopes were very steep, as might be exjDected from the origin of the lake, and on the 
north side, below the great vertical precipice, a sounding of 43 fathoms was obtained 
at a distance of only 60 feet from the shore. Apparently the floor of the depression 
was bowl-shaped, but not uniformly concave, as the deepest part lay to tlie north of 
the centre. As measured from the lower lij^ of the crater the total depth must have 
been over 1600 feet. 
* F. A. Ober, ‘ Camps in the Caribhees,’ 1880, p. 203. 
t IIaxs Reusch, ‘Nature,’ vol. 66, p. 132, June 5th, 1902. 
I P. Foster Huggixs, ‘ An Account of the Eruptions of the Saint Vincent Soufriere.’ Kingstown, 
St, Vincent, 1902. 
3 c 
VOL, CC.—A, 
