SOUFEIERE, AND ON A VISIT TO MONTAGNE PELEE, IN 1902. 
425 
ash had accumulated perhaps a foot or two feet in thickness. The streams here have 
a short and rapid descent to the sea and flow in deep narrow valleys with steep sides. 
The heavy rains washed away nearly all the loose sand and the smaller stones, and 
with them much of the underlying soil. This material was hurried into the sea, 
which here is comparatively shallow for some distance from the shore. The streams 
on reaching sea level dropped their load of sand and pebbles, and it gathered in 
banks along the beach. The strong shore current generated by the steady trade- 
wind surf which beats against this coast was unable to remove the deposits as 
rapidly as they accumulated, and in consequence the sea margin receded to some 
distance from the old shore marks. From Overland Village north to Robin Rock, a 
distance of nearlv a mile, there was a broad beach of black volcanic sand where 
formerly the waves had washed the base of a lofty cliff. We were assured that there 
had been no change in the relative levels of land and sea. When we visited this 
spot it was evident that the action of the waves was gradually reducing the deposit 
and cutting back the sand banks till they faced the sea in some places in little cliffs 
some 4 or 6 feet high. It is probable that a thickness of 15 feet or more of sand was 
laid down along the sea shore in this way. At the wharf, at Rabaka, where the sugar 
was formerly loaded into boats, it is said that the water is now shallower by about 
12 feet. Nevertheless the old rum store stands at the same altitude above the sea 
level as it did formerly. The breadth of the sand beach was at most about 200 feet, 
but all the wmy from Sandy Bay to Colonarie it was evident that much black volcanic 
sand had recently gathered on the beaches, and that the sea-waves were only slowly 
distributing it along the shore. 
THE GEOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF THE ERUPTIONS. 
The South Part of St. Vincent in June. 1902. 
W^hen we arrived in St. Vhncent, on tlie 10th June, and landed at Kingstown, it 
was not without an effort that we could realise that so recently a great eruption had 
darkened the air with falling dust and scoria. The south end of the island was a 
scene of tropical beauty—the rugged peaks and narrow valleys being clad in a dense 
mantle of green vegetation. In Barbados a thin layer of dark mud had been visible 
on the usupRy white surface of the limestone roads, the remains of “the dust” ; but 
in Kingstown it required a rather careful search to find traces of the recent deposit. 
The depth of the fall of ashes had been small—not over half an inch, and the rains 
had already washed it almost entirely into the sea. As we journeyed along the lee¬ 
ward coast it was not till we reached Chateaubelair that any striking evidence of the 
volcanic activity was visible. To the south of that point a few torn leaves on the 
trees, a thin layer of scoriaceous pebbles on the fields, or a roof damaged by a falling 
stone, were all that we saw to testify to the recent rain of ashes 
3 I 
VOL. CC. A. 
