420 
DRS. T. ANDERSON AND J. S. FLEET ON THE ERUPTIONS OF THE 
In Kingstown tlie consternation was intense. Some ruslied about the streets in 
o 
terror. Others fell on their knees and jDrayed aloud, but many shut themselves in 
their houses, dreading an incursion of the great black cloud. A small quantity of 
very fine dust fell in the town, but there was no deep darkness. 
It was noticed in Chateaubelair and Georgetown that many of the children com¬ 
plained of a painful feeling in their ears."^ This phenomenon was already described in 
connection with tlie first eruption. 
Bisliop SwABY, of Barbados, was in Kingstown that night, and gives some interestmg 
particulars regarding the eruption as observed from that place. He was at supper 
when he heard!— 
“ An explo.sion like that of a bursting shell, followed by a roaring groaning sound which startled 
the party, and they ran out into the garden and looked in the direction of the Soufriere. They 
saw an immense column of white vapour ascending high in the air above the mountain, twisting and 
twirling upon itself till it assumed the shape of a flower, and forked lightning was playing around 
it incessantly. The curious thing about the lightning was that it embroidered, as it were, the edge 
of the cloud of vapour, playing around it with a continuous scintillation as of fireworks. The thunder, 
too, was continuous, but the thing that struck his lordship was the rattling groan of the labouring 
mountain. Otherwise a deep hush pervaded the region, and served to make the scene more impressive 
to the beholder. The phenomenon lasted about 15 minutes, and there was an interval till about 
10 o’clock, when it came again. The mountain was about 15 miles from Kingstown, where it was 
viewed, and the watery vapour must have been about 30,000 or 40,000 feet high to have been seen 
above the mountain as it was.” 
It is impossible to say whether or not a black dust cloud descended from the 
Soufriere down the valleys of the Wallibii and Rabaka on this occasion, as no one was 
residing in the houses there, and in the darkness it was impossible for those in George¬ 
town and ChateaidDelair to see what was going on. On the whole, it seems practically 
certain that there was a recurrence of this phenomenon, though on a scale so small that 
the deposits which it produced could not be compared with those which filled the 
ravines on the 7th May. Next morning it was seen that a thin layer of freshly 
deposited ash covered the surface of the mountain. Apparently there was a repetition 
of what happened in the first eruption, though there could be no comparison between 
the magnitude of the two outbursts. The premonitory symjDtoms were entirely 
wanting in this case, and the preliminary stages so brief and inconspicuous as to have 
escaped notice. The loud explosions and sudden rush of steam may be regarded as 
accompanying the outburst of the dust avalanche and black cloud, the subsequent 
noises as the effect of upward steam exj^losions jjrojecting dust, scoiia, and bombs 
into the air. Many people told us that in their opinion the noises were as loud as on 
the 7th May, but certainly they were not heard so far, and the disastrous calamity 
which had previously overtaken the island had left behind a state of nervous appre¬ 
hension which led to exaggerated estimates of the magnitude of the subsequent mani- 
* ‘ Times,’ Kingstown, Thursday, May 22, 1902. 
t ‘ Barbados Advocate,’ Saturday, May 24, 1902. 
