SOUFRIERE, AND ON A VISIT TO MONTAONE PEERE, IN 1902. 
455 
Mr. T. M. McDonald, who knows every feature of this coast intimately, pointed 
out to us that in most cases they had disappeared with the houses which were 
planted on them. The rocky cliffs behind them still stand, bearing the remains of 
the trees which previously grew there. Only the wedged-shaped deltas have 
vanished. There is no trace of any fracture or dislocation, and the marks cut by the 
tide on this shore show that there has been no change of level, or, at any rate, none 
of more than a few inches. Everything points to the slipping of loose, gravelly and 
sandy deposits piled on the steep submarine slope which characterises this coast. 
Tliere is no difficulty in believing that a similar process has gone on at Wallihu and 
Morne Ronde, and this will explain most of the facts observed. Mr. Rober'ison, of 
Wallihu, left for Chateauhelair on Wednesday, the 7th May, about 12.30 p.m. As 
he_ went down from his liouse to the boat on the sea shore lie noticed that the flat 
beach was sinking, “ dropping down like stuff from a cart,” and the liluff behind was 
tumbling down on the flat lielow. The impression formed on his mind was that the 
soft, incoherent accumulations were settling down under the concussions and earth¬ 
quakes produced by tlie eruptions. No one saw this part of the shore again till 
several days had elapsed, aiid then it ivas in essentially the same condition as when 
we visited it, except that there was no lieach heloiv the cliff. 
Allowance must also be made for the effects of the blast which rushed out from the 
valleys of the Wallihu and Walliliu Dry Rivers. Tt was strong enough to blow down 
many of the trees on the ridge above Wallihu, and must have raised the sea in 
powerful waves. Captain Freeman, of tlie “ Ptoddam,” states that in St. Pierre 
liarbour the waves occasioned by the blast were tempestuous.'^'" But here tlie wind 
was off the shore, and may have really produced very little effect. 
There is, however, a certain amount of evidence wliich points to the conclusion tfuit 
the inner l)oundary of this depressed tract may he a fault line. It certainly has a 
very straight trend, and, looking at it on the map, one is at once struck with this 
pecifliarity. In this respect it differs entirely from the smaller subsidences at tlie 
moutlis of the streams at Larikai and Trots Loups. Anotlier fact of great interest 
is the rapidity with which the water deepens off’ the new shore. Mr. P. Foster 
Huggins,! of Chateaulielair, found that at 50 feet from the heacli the depth is 
7^ fathoms, at 100 feet 18 fathoms, a suhmai'ine slope of 45°. This is a gradient 
much higher than is usual along tliis side of the island, and may lie due to the 
presence of a fracture, on the seaward side of wliicli there has been depression. 
Formerly, this coast was known as Hot Waters, because the water obtained by 
digging pits in the sand was wnrni. This may indicate the existence of a fissure up 
wffiich hot water rose, but all the inhabitants of the villages on the beach whom we 
* Captain Freeman, “ The Awful Doom of St. Pierre.” See ‘ Pearson’s Magazine,’ Sejitember, 1902, 
p. 316. ■ 
t “An Account of the Eruptions of the St, Vincent Soufritre,” p. 17. By P. Foster Huggins, 
St. Vincent, 1902. 
