DES. T. AXr»ERSON AND ,T, S. FLETT ON THE ERUPTIONS OF THE 
4:3r, 
were far more noticeable here than on the leeward country. There was nothing to 
show that the material had been dumped down suddenly in irregular heaps by an 
avalanche; it was more easy to suppose that it had fallen in a steady rain from above 
and the regular thinning away in all directions outwards from the crater greatly 
favoured this supposition. 
During the days of heavy rain true mud lavas, on a small scale, had flowed down 
some of the streams. They were thick, pasty currents of black volcanic sand mixed 
with water, and sometimes liad not been sufficiently fluid to reach the sea, as the 
gradients in the lower parts of the streams are low. At Waterloo a flow of fhis mud 
could still be seen to occupy parts of the stream courses. It was 3 feet thick, and 
consisted mostly of the fine material from the surface of the fields of ash. 
In the estates along the shore of the Carib Country the damage done to trees and 
buildings was l)y no means so great as might been have expected. The chimney of the 
factory at Tnrema and the wall of an old store at lial)aka were knocked dovm, 
probably l)y lightning. The iron roofs of some stores and verandahs and many of the 
ill-ljnilt, trash-roofed, wooden huts of the labourers had collapsed under the weight of 
the pile of ashes which accumulated on them. Some of the thatched huts had taken 
fire, it may be from flashes of lightning, or possibly from hot falling stones, for we 
were told that some stones broke wlien they struck the ground, and their interior 
was red hot. The trees had had tlieir bi'anches l)roken and their leaves stripped bv 
the rain of scoria, l)ut were mostly still living and renewing their foliage. Some, 
however, had been struck by lightning and their trunks had been split asunder. We 
were told tliat many had had their branches weighted down to the ground or broken 
oft' the stems by the ashes which gathered on tliem in the afternoon and night of the 
7t]i of May. But in the managers’ buildings, though everything was very dirtv from 
the layer of ashes which had covered all walls and furniture, little had been destroyed. 
The glass in the windows was often In’oken and the roofs sometimes perforated hy 
falling stones, but tlie fin-niture, the stores in the cellars, the machinery, the pictures, 
liad not been destroyed and were apparently very little damaged. 
At Lot 14 the damage had been greater, the village of labourers’ lints was ruined, 
partly liy fire, jjartly by fine weight of ashes that gathered on the roofs. But the 
sugar works and the manager’s house were not much more injured. In the house the 
windows wei'e broken, and a verandah had collapsed, l)ut nothing was burnt, and in 
the cellar below, in which the manager and his family had taken refuge, eveiything 
seemed to be in its normal condition. 
The stream known as the Rabaka Dry River heads in a seiles of tributaries 
which flow in dee]) ravines down the slopes on the northern side of the Morne 
Gam and the south side of the Soufriere. I’hese unite to form a main trunk which 
descends to the Carib Country, at first through a valley which, though not so pre¬ 
cipitous on its sides as is usually the case in the mountain gorges of St. Vincent, is 
still a dee]) and well-marked trough, Iiut al)Out half a mile al)ove its moutli the river 
