Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 61.djvu/359

can scientists say that those eruptions have no parallel in history, and the electrical and gaseous phenomena make them unique—these and a hundred other similar statements have absolutely no foundation in fact, while other most interesting details have passed unnoticed. The fault,

Fig. 1. St. Pierre; showing the American Consulate and the Cathedral as they were before the eruption.

however, does not rest with the correspondent; it rests with those at home who 'cook up' cable despatches, and with those living in the islands whose nerves are gone and who are thereby in an overimaginative frame of mind. Thus while I was occupying a beautiful little villa under the leeward slopes of Soufrière, a small thunderstorm broke about

Fig. 2. St. Pierre: The Same General View after the Eruption of May 8, 1902.

midnight over the mountain—thunderstorms occurred nearly every day. It was described next day as follows in the local paper:

At about three o'clock in the morning, May 30th, whilst the moon shone in dazzling splendour, an enormous silvery cloud rose from the Soufrière, and immediately afterwards roars, which in all probability issued from the crater,