SOUFPJERE, AND ON A VISIT TO MONTAGNE PELEE, IN 1902. 
423 
sand and ashes, the results were almost disastrous. The loose materials on the surface 
were not protected by any covering of vegetation or held together by the roots of 
growing plants, and every raindrop carried its burden of sand and mud to the rills, 
which carved innumerable furrows in the fields. The streams were swollen to 
torrents, so rapidly did the excessive downpour of rain run off the surface of the 
ground in the absence of growing crops and plants, which in ordinary circumstances 
would have restrained and checked the violence of the discharge. So much mud was 
carried into the sea, that for days its waters were turbid and discoloured for several 
hundred yards from the shore. In many places the ash was washed almost com¬ 
pletely off the steeper slopes, even where it had been a foot or more in thickness. 
Mud avalanches took place on a small scale wherever the gradient was sufficiently 
steep to allow the moist semi-fluid material to move by its own weight. Behind the 
plain on which Georgetown stands, there is a stretch of rising ground which overlooks 
the fields of the Grand Sable estate in bluffs a couple of hundred feet high or less. 
Currents of mud flowed down upon the arrowroot fields wliich lie below, and covered 
them with fans of debris. They even swept across the public road into that part of 
the village which is known as Browne’s Town, overturning several small houses and 
burying their occupants in the ruin of their huts. In this way two people were 
killed. 
Hitherto the fields of ash which covered the Soufriere had had their original surface 
characters well preserved, and in their smoothed and wind-strewn aspect had greatly 
resembled deposits of blown snow. Occasional showers had been sufficient to furrow 
the steeper slopes, but on the level ground feather-like rain-rills had not yet l^eeii 
developed. But from this time onward that marvellous rain-sculpture of grooves and 
furrows converging to a central axial stem, which was as astonishing as it was instruc¬ 
tive to the geologists who have since visited the volcano, is to l)e found in all the 
photographs which have been taken of the scenes of the eruption. 
The scientific investigation of the history and consecpiences of the recent activity 
of the Soufriere may be said to date from the period of the rains. The United States 
steamship “Dixie” entered Kingstown harbour on the 23rd, bringing with it a 
number of newspaper correspondents and a party of American scientific men, 
including Professor Israel Bussell, Professor Jaguar, Mr. E. 0. Hovey, Mr. 
Curtis, and Mr. Borchgrevink. They proceeded at once to collect information, 
and they and Mr. Wilson, of Kingstown, succeeded in obtaining many excellent 
photographs of the devastated country. These all show the great amount of erosion 
which had been effected by the tropical deluges of the 25th May. Only the photo¬ 
graphs taken by Mr. Wilson some days before the rains indicate the original aspect 
of the surface. We can rely also on the descriptions given us by those who had 
been engaged in the work of searching for the wounded or burying the dead, or had 
visited the Wallibu Valley during the period of quiescence before the second out¬ 
burst. At Pelee, in Martinique, owing to the repeated discharges of dust, and also 
