Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 64.djvu/229

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THE ERUPTION OF PELEE.
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air and then landing on the mountain slopes and rolling down the hill. These red-hot stones were projected as much as a mile from the crater.

Suddenly a great yellow or reddish glare lit up the whole cloud mass, a

Fig. 1. Eruption of Mount Pelée, 4.10 p.m., July 16, 1902. (Photo by T. A. Jaggar, Jr.)

This photograph was taken from the S. S. Dahome off Fort de France, looking north. On the right is the slope of the Pitons of Carbet. The steam column was over six times the apparent height of these peaks, and its base was twelve miles away. its crest subtended a vertical angle of 29° measured with a handlevel. Allowing for bulge, its height was not less than from four to six miles. The upper portion of the cloud, bent to the right (east), has passed through the trade-wind bell and is moving with the counter-current. A 'cauliflower' wall of dust could be seen moving down to the west at the base of the column, and rolling out from the mountain over the water.

prolonged angry growl burst from the mountain, not loud, but with a 'snarling character.' A red-hot avalanche rose from the cleft in the hillside and poured