SOUFPvIERE, AND ON A VISIT TO IMONTAGNE PELEE, IN 1902. 
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Another and a striking difference between the Soiifriere and Pelee is in the 
manner of their behaviour during the time that has elapsed since their first outburst 
early in May this year. The Soufri^re soon ceased to emit its column of vapour and 
of ashes, and between the successive eruptions periods of complete tranquillity (except 
for rumblings and slight earth tremors) have intervened. But Pelee, according to 
the accounts given us by many who have visited the mountain since the first great 
outbreak, has never quite discontinued to send out towering steam clouds at more or 
less regular intervals. When we were in St. Pierre in the early part of July this 
year, the great gaping rent on the south-west side of the mountain-top would every 
now and then discharge great puffs of steam which, rising in the air, would expand 
and become balloon-shaped, their surfaces covered with rounded, swelling convolutions, 
which rapidly multiplied and incessantly changed their form. They were veiy similar 
in appearance to the puffs Avhich rose from the Wallil)u in St. Vincent, and as they 
were sudden, and formed in a second or two,-their iq)per parts soon separated from 
the stem, and floated off before the steady east-north-east trade wind. As they drifted 
across the face of the mountain the fine ash fell from them like a thick mist, which 
veiled the features of slope and scar and ravine. We often compared them to cauli¬ 
flowers, or to hunches of grapes, and very similar effects may occasionally l^e noticed 
where a large locomotive sends one great blast of steam straight up from its funnel. 
When they leaped into the air, a low, dull rumble might often be heard. They 
ascended to lieights of 4000 or 5000 feet above sea-level before their upward velocity 
was spent, and their gracefid l)eauty of form, and the play of light and shade on their 
surfaces, as they ceaselessly expanded and their convolutions swelled and melted into 
the flattened drifting clouds, which the wind bore with it to leeward, were objects of 
continual interest and admiration to us. We did not see them carry up stones of airy 
size, nor did they condense as they floated arvay, for the ash which fell was dry, and 
there was actually a lack of r ain in Precheur, in which the falling dust had covered 
everything with an ashen pall. 
(Jne of these clouds would rise every 10 or 20 minutes, for hours at a time, then 
for an hour or more there would be none, and when the trade-wind cloud which 
always capped the mountain would lift and clear for a little, we could see with our 
binoculars the great V-shaped cleft which faces St. Pierre, and out of which welled 
the deadly blast that razed the city. A .sloping scree of enormous angular blocks of 
rock lay in this gulch. At night a dull red glow is sometimes seen given out by these 
boulders, for they are intensely hot; and little landslides occasionally took place in 
them, the material being probably set in motion by the tremors which accompanied 
the ri.se of the .steam jets. 
This talus of great .stones was formed, apparently, around the crater, where the 
ejecta which had been ca.st up, but had not sufficient velocity to surmount the 
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.summit and land on the windward side or in the apical lake (the Etaiig des Palmistesl, 
wordd necessarily accumulate. Its formation was plainly due to the greater eruptions, 
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