SOUFEIERE, AND ON A VISIT TO MONTAGNE PELEE, IN 1902. 
435 
whole Carib Country. It is buried under a sheet of ashes, the depth of which to the 
south of that village is only a few inches, but increases as it is traced northward to 
Eabaka, Waterloo, and Orange Hill, where it is often 3 feet. At Overland the 
deposit again thins out to less than 1 foot, and from thence to Victoria Village must 
probably have been at first less than this, though the powerful action of the rains on 
the steep hill slopes in this quarter had removed the greater part of it before our 
arrival. Traced inland, this sheet of sand and scoria gradually thickens, and above 
Imt 14, on the flat ground known as the Mahoe, it was probably in many places 5 feet 
deejo. Over the whole of this country the rains had caused immense erosion, and 
everywhere the surface was sculptured with furrows and runnels (see Plate 21, 
fig 2). Where these united, they had formed considerable streams, which had cut 
downwards into the soft red earth which underlay the new ash, and sometimes in the 
midst of a level cultivated field a gully 20 feet wide and 12 feet deep would testify 
to the rapid and intense erosion which these transient torrents had effected. 
The original surface configuration of the fields of ash had been greatly modified 
before the middle of June, when we were there, but it was clear that they had at 
first been characterised by a smoothed and strewn appearance resemWing that of a fall 
of snow. They were covered with rain-rills, the arrangement of which depended to a 
considerable extent on the slope of the ground, for where that was slight, the 
tributary furrows united to form a main channel at comparatively high angles, and 
were often tortuous ; but where the slope was high the rills were straight and nearly 
parallel. For yards they would run side by side, separated only by a narrow ridge, 
a foot or more in height, and they united to form larger channels only where the 
gradient diminished (see Plate 28, fig. 1). 
The finer dust had disappeared from the surface, and only the coarser sand, lapilli, 
bombs, and ejected blocks remained. On the whole there seemed to l)e a greater 
abundance of coarse material and large stones than in the Wallibu Valley. This may 
have been a consequence of the greater rainfall on the windward side of the mountain, 
which had removed the finer ingredients more completely, and it must also be borne 
in mind that two rainy weeks had elapsed since we had explored the valley of the 
Wallibu. Still, an impression was left on our minds that bombs, ejected blocks and 
large lapilli were commoner here than on the leeward side."^ This did not, however, 
eftace that distinctive character of the ejecta of the Soufriere already noted, for still 
the fine material greatly preponderated, and the new ash might l^est be described as 
a sand and dust deposit. Boinbs, 2 or 3 feet in diameter, were not uncommon, and 
the different kinds of rock found at Wallibu were all present here also. 
In the Carib Country there were none of those round backed ridges of sand— 
30 or 40 feet deep in their centres—which were seen on the Wallibu Dry Piver. 
The uniformity in depth of the sheets of ashes and their smoothed iq^per surfaces 
* ISIr. E. 0. Hovey is of the same opinion : “ Martinique and St. Vincent: a Preliminary Report upon 
the Eruptions of 1902 ” ‘Bull, Amer. Museum Nat. Hist.,’ vol. 16, p. 339, 1902. 
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