SOUFRIERE, AND ON A VISIT TO MONTAONE PELEE, IN 1902. 
505 
from the narratives of Captain Feeeman and Mr. Ellery Scott, A\'e can glean a 
few particulars as to what happened during the time they spent before the city. 
The great cloud passed in a few minutes, and the air cleared sufficiently to enalde 
them to see the hnrnino’ streets and the inhabitants fleeing hither and thither, 
stricken to death with wounds and burns. No second incursion of tliat destroying 
cloud swept over them. The air was thick with dust, hot stones were falling freely, 
and the mountain boomed in the distance. At times the darkness lifted a little, till 
they could make out more clearly the details of the awful scene on shore.'* Working 
backward and forward to free his steering gear from the dust with which it was 
jammed, the captain of the “ Roddam ” had still light to see the land and to avoid 
collision with the wrecked and burning ships which strewed the bay. The “ Roraima” 
was ablaze; most of the crew and passengers were dead ; she lay a helpless, burning 
hulk, but those who were alive took steps to put out the flames, and were at least 
able to keep them in check till 3 o’clock in the afternoon, when the French cruiser 
“ Suchet ” came in and took them off. This was about seven hours after the great 
explosion, and it seems that at Pelee the jDeriod of comparative quiescence followed 
much sooner than at St. Vincent, where the noises and the rain of stones continued 
for 12 or 15 hours. 
Tlie later stages of the eruption of May 26th are not recorded by Professor Hill, 
and on July 9th we could not sav exactly what followed the descent of the red-liot 
avalanche and the black cloud, for the mountain was concealed in a mass of dust 
and vapours, and we wei'e gradually increasing our distance from it. But we 
believe that on that night the activity was short-lived, and soon came to an end. 
4. The Concluding Stages. —The concluding phases of these eruptions are in 
most respects similar to the preliminary stages, except that the activity is now 
constantly decreasing. Steam rises from the crater in rolling, expanding clouds, 
densely charged with fine dust, which gives them a slaty-grey colour. The Soufrieie 
relapsed into complete inactivity in seven or eight days, to break out again after a 
week’s repose. Montague Pelee has continued, between the greater outbursts, to 
send out, more or less frequently, the cauliflower steam clouds which well from the 
fissure in its side. In other respects the two mountains have behaved in much 
the same way when the jieriod of Availing violence arrived. Each day they haAm 
been less active than on the preAUOus one, Avith occasional rare and temporary 
exceptions, on which the discharges increased for a feAv hours to again diminish more 
rapidly than before. 
In St. Vincent the eruption of May 7th aa^s followed by that of the 9th, Avithout 
any inteiwening cessation; l)etween that of the 9th and that of the 18th there aaus 
a considerable |muse. After the eruption of the 8th at Pelbe came that of the 20th, 
and then that of May 26th. On June 6th another took place, and thereafter for a 
* Professor Lacroix and his colleagues state that the sky cleared in one hoiu’ after the passage of the 
black cloud. “ Sur I’Eruption de la Martinique,” ‘ Conijites Rendus,’ a^oI. cxxxaa, p. 425. 
VOL. (JC.—A. 3 T 
