266 
RECENT VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS IN THE WEST INDIES. 
of barely 5,000 feet above sea-level, the depth of the Caribbean sea 
to the west is over 10,000 feet. They occupy the summit of a great 
fold of the Earth’s crust, and are almost entirely volcanic, the chief 
exception being Antigua and a small portion of the eastern part of 
Guadeloupe, which, with Barbados, appears to form part of another fold 
more to the east, which is not volcanic. Other volcanoes occur on the 
mainland to the west of the Caribbean sea, one of which in Guatemala 
has also recently been in eruption. Earthquakes had taken place in 
the region surrounding the Caribbean sea during some months 
previously, and it has been concluded that the readjustments of the 
Earth’s crusts which gave rise to these have also been connected with 
the eruptions in St. Vincent and Martinique. 
The island of St. Vincent is oval, the long diameter being nearly 
north and south. It is about 18 miles long and 11 miles wide. A 
mountain chain stretches along the main axis of the island, and reaches 
to a height varying from 2000 to 1000 feet, the highest point being 
just over 4000. It is entirely composed of volcanic materials, the beds 
dipping away from the central mass in all directions towards the sea. 
They consist chiefly of tuffs and agglomerates—in fact, fragmentary 
materials resembling those discharged from the Soufriere during the 
recent eruptions. Among them are many ejected blocks of enormous 
size, even as much as 20 or 30 feet in diameter, showing that some of 
the former eruptions must have been explosive like the late one, but on 
a grander scale. Lava-flows are comparatively few, but not entirely 
absent, and dykes are rare. 
In the southern part of the island volcanic action has long been ex¬ 
tinct or dormant, and we did not see any remains of craters, all such having 
apparently been removed by denudation. Towards the northern part of 
the island, however, is the great mass of the Soufriere mountain, in the 
summit of which is a crater of an almost circular form, about a mile in 
diameter. This, which is called the old crater, appears to have been 
the chief, if not the only, site of the recent eruption. On the north¬ 
east of the old crater, and only separated from it by a narrow ridge, is 
the so-called new crater, which was active in 1812. It is only about 
one-third of a mile in diameter, and it is doubtful whether it took any 
part in the last eruption. To the north of these craters, and partly 
encircling them, is an old crater-ring, which bears the same relation 
to them as Somma does to Vesuvius. The name Morne Garu was 
formerly applied indiscriminately to all this mountain range, but now 
has become restricted to a peak some distance to the south of the main 
crater, while the name Soufriere appears to be always given to the 
active cone. 
To the south of the main craters, and between them and Morne 
Garu, a great depression or system of valleys extends right across the 
island. The eastern side of this is occupied by the Rabaka Dry river and 
