SOUFEIEBE, AND ON A VISIT TO MONTAGNE PELEE, IN 1902. 
539 
Soufri^re, a cirque bounded on three sides by walls so steejJ as to be almost 
precipitous, but open to the north, where a stream, hot and turbid with precipitated 
sulphur. Hows out to make its way to the sea. In Mr. Branch’s opinion this 
Soufriere was more active than usual. Half a dozen orifices spouted steam and 
boiling water into the air with a loud hissing noise, like that of a locomotive. In 
the bottom of the pit no trees grew, and the naked walls that overlook it showed 
that the poisonous gases had entirely j)i’evented tlie growth of vegetation, and had, 
in addition, attacked the exposed rock surfaces of coarse agglomeratic tuff, which 
were crumbling away and bleached by the acids in the air. Formerly there were 
times when these springs were quiescent, or only few of them emitted steam. They 
were now in vigorous activity, all puffing and casting up little columns of mingled 
steam and water; the smell was overpowering, and the heat of the steam, with the 
tropical sun beating down on the bare, rocky walls, made it a place in which one 
did not desire to loiter. 
We then followed the stream down the valley, along a jDath so seldom used that it 
was almost obliterated by the dense growth of calumet and razor grasses, through which 
we waded up to our necks. The whole of this valley contained hot springs charged 
with snlphurous gases : lateral streams entered the main one—some cool, clear, and 
potable ; others hot, dirty, and laden with sulphur. After walking rather more than 
half a mile, we turned to the left up a side valley, and, crossing a small ridge, we came 
to the famous boiling lake. 
It is a cup-shaped depression, a bowl nearly circular in outline, perhaps 100 yards 
across, with high bare walls of weathered tuff surrounding it. At the east and west 
sides the bowl has two deep notches in its margin. Through these, two small 
streams enter on the west—one pure and cool, the other sulphurous ; and on the east 
the effluent stream emerges. It is, in fact, an enlargement of part of the cliannel 
produced by the action of a powerful soufriere, which has decomposed the rocks 
around its orifice, and j)roduced a funnel-shaped cavity through which the stream 
flows, and out of which it washes all the finer mud due to the churning of the water 
by the uprising steam. The north and south walls are perhaps 50 feet high, and 
show the effects of the acids generated by the oxidation of the hydrogen sulphide in 
their crumbling decayed surfaces. 
The pool was full of milky, greenish water, boiling furiously towards its centre, 
where it was seething like a gigantic caldron. The smell was opj^ressive, especially 
when the wind Idew towards us and carried with it the steam and gases. We 
found that the only danger was that of being poisoned by the suljjhuretted 
hydrogen, and this could only take place in the bottom of the depression, where 
there was least chance of the gases being mixed and diluted with air. The deaths 
which took place here this sj)ring were, in the opinion of Dr. Nicholls, occasioned by 
the visitors having gone down to the edge of the water. They had fallen unconscious, 
and the guides had been afraid to go to their rescue, 
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