492 
DRS. T. AXDEESOX AND J. S. FLETT ON THE ERUPTIONS OF THE 
for the smaller jets of steam could add but little to the piles of rock which gathered 
there. The larefe size of the boulders showed that most of the finer dust had soared 
o 
high in the air and travelled far before alighting, and little whiffs of steam rose 
sometimes from between these stones, and wafted away whatever finer stuff had 
temporarily landed among them. 
These club-shaped steam columns which towered into the air have been seen by all 
visitors to St. Pierre, and when unusually large, have occasioned much trepidation, 
and given rise to many baseless laimours of eruptions. According to Professor 
Jaggar, they had been visilde every day he saw the mountain from that side, but 
varied a good deal in frequency and in size. They were quite harmless, even to those 
who were accidentally involved in their edges, and consisted of dry steam, dust, and 
a little sulphurous acid. 
The Eruption of July 9th, 1902. 
The night of July 9th was marked by one of the major eruptions of Pelee, and 
we had the exceptional good fortune to be in St. Pierre that day, and to have 
a magnificent view of tlie eruption, while we escaped entirely unscathed. 
The morning had been exceedingly fine, and we spent it in St. Pierre examining 
the ruined city and the cane-fields on the banks of the Riviere des Peres. During 
the forenoon the mountain was in a .state of almost complete quiescence. Hardly 
a single steam cloud rose from fissures in the Ptiviere Blanche, and at times the 
summit of the mountain could l3e made out rising above the great cleft near the top. 
To the west it formed a broken cliff, with extraordinary ruggedness, overlooking the 
old crater of the Lac des Palmistes. As mid-day passed the familiar steam jets 
appeared again, and in the clear air they were so beautiful, so large, so perfectly 
formed, that we peiTorce had to halt in our wanderings through the city and gaze on 
their varied transformations. Similar clouds of larger size we had seen previously, 
hut never any so uniformly perfect in all their proportions. We had with us a small 
sail-boat, the “Minerva,” of Grenada, of 10 tons register or less, \^hlch served as 
a base for our expedition, and in the afternoon we went aboard and cruised about the 
l^ay, sailing down along the coast to Precheur, taking photographs of the hill and of 
the .steam clouds, which continued to rise at regular short intervals. Oft Precheur 
we put aloout and stood loack close-hauled across the bay. Foi* a time the breeze fell 
away, ljut as we drew out from the land the fresh trade wind met us and bore us 
along to the south end of the anchorage. The perfect afternoon light showed up in 
deep relief the naked, scarred, and riven surface of the great volcano. As we were 
half-way across tlie hay of St. Pierre, about half-past five in the afternoon, the steam 
clouds, which liitherto had followed one another at short intervals sufficient to allow 
each to exhibit its perfect form and to pass through the various .stages of asceiit and 
expansion before another followed it, began to rise with greater frequency, so that 
one interfered with the isolated development of that which went before. 
