52n 
DRS. T. ANDEPuSOX AND J. S. FLETT OX THE EPUPTIOXS OF THE 
In Overland Village, and a few other places, the first ash brought in the blast was 
wet, and stuck to the walls of the houses. This w'as the case also in Fancy and in 
St. Pierre. This wet mud occasioned severe burns, as it adhered to the naked skin, 
and many of the sufierers had extensive burns, from which the skin was peeling. 
But in most cases the dust was dry, and clung principally to those parts which were 
moist, like the lips, or were covered with short hairs, like the hacks of the forearms. 
In the hospital in St. Vincent one patient had a cake of dust, one-eighth of an inch 
thick, adherent to the .scalp, which was .slowly healing beneath it. 
ProlDably not less than nine-tenths of the fatalities were produced by the causes 
above enumerated, but there were others wdiich certaiidy were in operation, though 
we cannot now estal)li.sh exactly to what extent any of them swelled the list. 
Many of the injured lay among the dead bodies on the floor, covered with a thin 
film of ashes, groaning, with parched throats, unable to raise themselves and search 
for water, waiting for death. Most of these died within an hour or two, others 
dragged on for a couple of days; one case was taken to hospital, and died three days 
after the eruption. The direct cause of death was shock and exhaustion. 
Others were removed and died under treatment, partly from the shock of their 
liurns and the terrible experiences through which they had passed, partly from the 
other secondary effects of their injuries. Fortunately, they were comparatively few ; 
only 70 deaths from burns and otlier causes occurred in the hospitals. 
Some also were killed by lightning—liow many it is impossible to say. One 
woman was seen to fall dead during a bright flash of lightning in the yard at 
Orange Hill. Probably others met a similar death, but this could have aftected 
practically only those who were fleeing from one liouse to another after the blast 
had passed. 
Many of the roofs of tlie huts, and even of the more sidistantially-built stores, 
collapsed through the niglit under tlie weight of ashes, and beneath them the 
searchers found, in some cases, heaps of dead bodies. Had any within these huts 
l)een .s})ared by the fatal Idast, they must have been suffocated by the roofs falling 
with their weight of hot sand. 
Similarly, many houses were ignited l)y incandescent stones or by lightning, and 
any wounded they contained must have been burned to death, but it is not certainly 
known that there were any such fatalities. 
Undoulfiedly some were killed by falling stones. Dr. Hutsox, of Barbados, told 
us he saw three cases of fractured skulls, and Captain Calder narrates that when 
8 miles from the volcano he was struck and almost rendered unconscious by a piece 
of rock. There are no statistics, however, to show whether such cases wein 
frequent. No one in Chateaubelair, so far as we know, was injured in this way ; one 
little girl in Georgetown was wounded by a stone in the afternoon of May 7th. 
* Sir P. Et.ewelyn, Blue Book ; ‘ Correspoiuleiice ret’iting to the Volcanic Eruptions in St. Vincent 
and Martinirpre in May, 1902,’ p. 05. 
