453 
SOUFEIEEE, AND ON A VISIT TO MONTAGNE PELEE, IN 1902. 
Ilowed along them, cliiigiug to the ravines, ljut did not ascend the opposing slopes. 
Except in this case there is little evidence that the blast had any power of climbing; 
it seems, in fact, to have been so heavy, so weighted down with dust that it flowed 
along the depressions of the hill sides almost like a torrent of water. This is shown 
by the evidence of those who saw the black cloud pouring in an inky mass down 
the gorges on the leeward side of the hill. The Carib Country is too level and open 
to modify in any way the course of this current, but at Chateaubelair there are several 
well-marked ridges between the village and Wallibu, and these certainly directed and 
deflected the path of the blast. At the north side of Richmond Vale Estate there is a 
spur, some 500 or 600 feet high, running down to the sea, and on the side of this ridge 
next the crater the destruction of vegetation has been very great; on the south side, 
a week or two after the eruption, everything was as green as before. It is in every 
way probable that these ridges saved the village, and a careful examination of tlie 
difference in the apjoearances presented by the country to the north and to the south 
side of each of them convinced us that they had intercepted the violence of the blast, 
and protected the region behind them. The moving mass of sand and gases was too 
heavy to rise freely in the air when it passed over Richmond, but clung to the surface 
of the ground, and lost much of its energy and dropped most of its solid matter before 
it could surmount an obstruction. The blast was, in fact, only the lighter and upper 
portion of the avalanche of dust. 
The rampart of the Somma wall, which faces the cratei' on its northern side, 
undoubtedly protected the country behind it, for the denser portion of the cloud was 
too much loaded with dust to climb this ridge. Its main force poured over the lower 
south lip of the crater with the avalanche of sand. On the north side the deposits 
are comparatively thin, and it seems that most of the material that emerged from the 
crater was deflected by the Somma and lodged in the valley of the Larikai. A 
black cloud certainly descended on Grand Baleine, 1)ut in surmounting the interveinng 
summit ridge of the liill it had lost by fai' the greater part of its burden of asli and 
therewith most of its violence. 
The Siihsidence at Wallihu and Moi'iie Ronde. 
More than one-half of the ash which gathered on the slopes of the Soufriere has 
already been waslied into the sea. When this rainy season is over little will remain 
on the Ingher ground, and the underlying soil will be in large measure als(j removed. 
So rapid is erosion under the conditions that prevail on the mountain, that when the 
eruptions cease it will soon be diflicult to find traces of the new asli de])osits on the 
higher grounds, and when tropical nature again spreads a thick mantle of vegetation 
over the naked surface, it will cover over and obliterate most of the effects of the 
eruptions of this year. The thick ash deposits in the valleys will long remain, but 
even tliese will disappeai' at last before the persistent, restless action of tlie streams. 
