SOUFRIERE, AND ON A VISIT TO MONTAONE PELEE, IN 1902. 
by a gentle sonth-east brease which was blowing that morning, so that in making tlie 
journey from St. Pierre to Pozean, which are only 20 miles apart in a direct line, it 
must have travelled at least thrice as far through the air, and had taken about six 
hours to cover the distance. 
We left Fort de France on the afternoon of July 1 Ith, and on our way to Dominica 
we had a good opportunity of seeing the general effects of the eruptions of the 9th 
and of the I Ith. Captain Barrett, of the R.M.S. “ Yare,” most kindly took his ship 
right up into St. Pierre Bay, and round the sliore as close as was possible. Evidently 
the avalanche had come down approximately along the line of the Riviere Seche, for 
all over that part of the mountain there was a layer of fresh, pale-grey dust covering 
the black surface of the older ash. The effect was not unlike that of a fall of snow, 
but, of course, the country was treeless and perfectly bare. The gi’ey dust was 
blowing over the surface in little clouds, stirred up by the wind, and the rivers were 
flowinp’ down through their channels hot and steamino’. We thought that there was 
more ash in the valleys than had been there on the afternoon of the 9th, when last 
we sailed along that shore, hut as we had never landed there it was not possible for 
us to be certain. Evidently the total amount of matter ejected had not been large, 
only sufficient to add a thin additional layer to the older deposits, Init not enough to 
dam up the valleys or make any essential difference in the surface features, 
A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE PELEAN TYPE OF ERUPTION. 
The attention of mankind has this year been powerfully directed to the effects 
produced by eru})tions of a type whicli hitlierto has not been known to exist, and 
which differs from other more customary kinds of volcanic action in several important 
respects. As the catastrophe by which, in the month of May, 1902, the city of 
St. Pierre was erased from the map of the world will remain to all time a witness to 
the violence with wdiich these eruptions are attended, we propose to adopt tlie term 
“ A Peffian Eruption ” to designate this group of phenomena. The earliest historic 
in.stance of such eruptions is that of vSt. Vincent, in 1812, which, as we have already 
shown, was clearly accompanied by the discharge of vast masses of hot sand and 
stones into the valleys of Wallilm, Larikai, and Rahaka. It is probable, hut it is not 
certain, that the eruption of the same volcano in 1718 was also of this natiire. 
Eruptions of the Pelean type are distinguished by the occurrence of one or more 
discharges of incandescent sand, which ru.sh down the slopes of the mountain in tlie 
form of a hot-saaid avalanche, accompanied l)y a great black cloud of gases charged 
with hot dust, which sweeps over the country with a very high velocity, mowing 
down everything in its path. All living beings within the zone nearest the crater- 
are killed ; all plants reduced to charred and broken stumps. At greater distances 
men and animals are scorched by hot sand or mud ; plants are Imrnt, eroded, and 
