ST, VINCENT IN 1902, AND ON A VISIT TO MONTAGNE FELEE. 
293 
After some seconds it reached to the level of the edge of the crater, and then rose to 
a height of several hundred metres. M. Lacroix succeeded in taking a photograph* * * § 
which shows an outline like sheaves of rockets, mixed with puffs of white vapour, 
which soon gained predominance and hid the rest from view. The mass of mud, 
which rose noisily, fell heavily back again with a deafening roar. Then a new column 
of vapour, larger than the former, rose from the bottom of the crater and Idled it. t 
The party received a heavy shower of mud. Several other explosions of different 
degrees occurred while the members were on the summit. The explosion was seen 
from Castries in St. Lucia, and was sufficiently conspicuous to cause inquiries as to 
its nature to be made by telegraph. 
Professor Hovey was one of the same party who visited the crater on March 3, 
1903, and he crossed the mountain to the windward side a few days later. He 
remarks^ 1 “ Considerable alterations have taken place since my former visit 8 months 
previously. The eruptions of May had left the leeward side coated with a deposit of 
very fine-grained material, which formed a cement-like mud under the influence of 
the rain ; but the deposit on the windward side was of a coarser nature. Now, the 
surface to leeward is covered with gravel which has more or less completely hardened 
into a compact surface. This gravel is composed not only of small fragments from 
a quarter to half an inch in diameter, hut also of numberless bombs. These bombs 
vary in size from that of a pea upwards, the largest observed were between 2 and 
3 feet across. On the windward side the gravelly deposit had not been compacted, 
but is soft to walk upon. Within the district from Richmond to Windsor Forest on 
the leeward, no vegetation is to be seen except such as has sprung up along the sides 
of the gullies which cut through the new deposit into the old soil. On the 
windward side the slopes of the mountain have been much more generally freed 
from ash than on the leeward, and considerable vegetation is to be seen on the slopes 
of the ravines and gorges. The crests of the ridges and the lower slopes, however, 
are still covered with a coating of bare ash.” He mentions the rapidity with which 
erosion has taken place since the eruption, and estimates the amount that has been 
carried out to sea from the valley of the Wallibu alone at 25,000,000 tons, without 
counting that from the surrounding slopes. 
Eruption , March 21 to 30, 1903.—The Rev. T. Huckerby writes as folio ws§ 
“From the 15th to the 18th of March the heat was intense. At 5 o’clock of the 
morning of the 18th three lunar halos were visible. On the morning of the same 
day a halo circled the sun. At about 9 o’clock the same night we were disturbed by 
* Lacroix, ‘ Montague Pelee,’ pp. 53-54 and 176—7, Plates 21, 22. 
t Lacroix, ‘ Montague Pelee,’ Plate 22. 
t ‘Sentry,’ St. Vincent, March 1903. ‘American Museum Journal,’ July 1903. ‘ Comptes Eendus, 
ix., Congres Geol. Internat. de Vienne, 1903, “The 1902-3 Eruptions of Mont Pelee, Martinique, and the 
Soufriere, St. Vincent,” by Edmund Otis Hovey. 
§ Letter to Dr. Anderson, 
