525 
SOUFPJERE, AXD ON A VISIT TO MONTAGNE PELEE, IN 1902. 
a, sense of suffocation supervened. The sufferers gasped and cried for breath, hut 
soon their cries were stilled by the approach of asphyxiation. They felt as if someone 
was powerfully compressing their throats, and at the same time their thirst was 
excessive. They complained also of the choking smell of burning sulphur, and in 
St. Vincent it is clear that in the blast there was much sulphurous acid, though 
in St. Pierre it was not conspicuous, at least on May 8th, when so many perished. 
Some of the doctors were inclined to ascribe many of the fatal consequences of the 
cloud to its presence; others merely regarded it as a subordinate factor, and this 
seems most probable, in view of what happened in Martinique. 
The duration of the fatal wave of hot gases and dust was certainly brief, probably 
not more than three minutes, but it seems clear that death was not instantaneous in 
St. Vincent, or at any rate on the estates in the lower part of the Carib Country, 
as it probably was in the north end of St. Pierre, for all the survivors gave a distinct 
and consistent account of the gradual though rapid onset of the symptoms. At 
the same time it must be remarked that apparently after a minute or two the 
conditions had a lethal effect on the great majority of those subjected to them. The 
cries were succeeded by silence and inarticulate groans, and death followed almost at 
once. We were told that in some of the houses where the dead were heaped upon 
' the floor, as in Sutherland’s shop in Overland Village, where 87 perished in a 
little room, the bodies lay regularly piled on one another—the whole mass, living 
and dead, had fallen at once. It is not possible to separate the effects of the hot 
gases and the dust. They acted together, and probably neither alone would 
have produced all the effects. The dust was irritant, and cauterised the epidermal 
surfaces ; the steam, sulj^hurous acid and other gases in the cloud, especially as 
they were not mixed with oxygen, produced the suffocation and finished the deadly 
work. 
Only those survived who had shut themselves up in cellars and rooms with tightly- 
closed windows. We have already given some instances which prove how important 
it was to avoid direct contact with the cloud. In the cellar at Orange Hill 40 
survived ; but 30 who were in the passage leading into it died. In Turema all who 
had escaped had taken refuge in tightly shut-up rooms. At Pabaka many were 
saved in the same way. All human beings and animals which were in the open air 
perished. In some cases one or two occupants of a house were spared, while all the 
others died. This was not the case at Lot 14, or on the leeward side—that is to 
say, in those parts where the blast was hottest; but in the Carib Country there were 
not a few of these miraculous escapes. Similarly, on the “Poddam” and “Poraima,” 
at St. Pierre, some were little injured, though apparently as much exjiosed as others 
who died. In all probability accidental circumstances, which can now no longer be 
brought to light, were the determining causes. We cannot say, for example, why in 
some cases one survived in a room wliere all the others, to the number of 10 or more, 
died almost at once. 
