SOUFEIERE, AND ON A VISIT TO MONTAGNE PELEE, IN 1902. 
433 
into flame and sent up curling wreaths of blue smoke. After a few hours without 
rain, the surface of the fields of ash ceased to steam, and the haze in the atmosphere 
gradually cleared. Then all along the valley the l3lue smoke of burning wood rose 
from the banks of ashes beside the river. 
Where the deposit was thick the interior was certainly not much below a dull red 
heat, even at the time when we were there. A month after the eruption, it still gave 
out a dry, stuffy smell, recalling hot lime freshly raked from the kiln. 
It may be remarked that in the ash there was much charred wood, mostly tlie 
remains of the trunks and the stouter branches of trees. They v ere mere renmants 
which had lost every vestige of their original form, and all the bark and the smaller 
branches had vanished. With the erosion of the deposits in the Wallibu, much of 
this burnt wood was swept down to the sea and floated about. The villagei'S diligently 
gathered it in their boats and stored it up to be used for the fires on which they cook 
their food. 
Although the volcanic sand was very hot, it was a bad conductor. The surface had 
been cooled by the rains, and only after some hours’ drought did it even feel hot to 
the hand except in the rain runnels. But the water did not penetrate far, and at a 
depth of a foot the ash was quite dry. The sugar cane, which was exposed in the 
Ijottom of the rain rills in the cane fields around Wallibu Works, had probably been 
covered by the hot ashes for several days, yet it was not destroyed, only charred on 
the surface. The wet earth beneath had cooled the under layer of the deposit. 
The intense heat of the ash explains the extraordinary steam explosions which took 
place along the streams after heavy rains. Then, from the Biver Wallibu, immense 
clouds ascended which might quite fairly be compared to those emitted by Yulcano or 
Stromboli during an eruption. Often, when the mornings were wet, we watched 
them from the windows of Sea View Cottage, near Chateaubelair, rising in great masses 
over the ridge which lies to the north-east of the village (see Plate 23, fig. l). 
They drifted to leeward before the trade-wind, strewing the waves of the sea with 
dust. Great gloljular, turgescent pillars of steam would shoot up in a few seconds to 
heights of about 2000 feet, their surfaces covered with rounded swelling excrescences, 
expanding and multiplying as they rose, and when their upward velocity was spent, 
they floated slowly away before the wind. They were exactly like the cauliflower 
clouds which used to rise from the fissure on the southern side of Pelee. Often at 
their base they wei'e grey, but, as they ascended, their margins and upper surfaces 
would change to brilliant white as the sun illuminated them. Half an hour after the 
rain was over they ceased to appear, or were very much diminished in size and 
number. 
We had more than one opportunity of seeing their origin on the Wallibu Piver, 
though after heavy rains it was not possible to approach very near the banks. But 
even when the water was low, steam puffs would go up at intervals. They invariably 
occurred where the stream was washing out the base of a cliff on the outside of its 
3 K 
VOL. cc.—A. 
