St Michaels College - Yearbook (Toronto, Ontario Canada)

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HDV Seconb lDisit to St. llbierre, flbarttnique-Giontinueb minutes from the moment the mountainous How began, it plunged into the waters. Two miles from its mouth it entered the deep, dry bed of Riviere Blanche, and when it hit the sea a huge column of steam reared itself aloft and the waters hizzed in their agony. Then there rose up to a prodigious height an enormous globular and surging mass, and as it rose it robed itself in black and almost quenched the light of the sun. For a few moments of agonizing suspense, the terrific body hung motionless. A slight inclination southward, it may have been a delusion of ours, paralyzed our faculties, for, if it moved towards us it would be for all of us a blast of death as ap- pallingly destructive as that which annihilated the city whose ruins surrounded us. A providential and merciful gust of wind decided the course of the hesitating monster, and the great cloud sailed slowly to the northwest, darkening the sky around it. Then it stopped again, as if directed by a human will, hung like a mighty shroud over the sea, then opened and discharged upon the waters an enormous mass of dust and ashes. Unlike the phenomenon which followed the avalanche of incandescent sand hurled against St. Pierre in May, there was no aerial explosion within the cloud, nor any destructive forces developed. AXVFUL RESULTS OF CLOUD EXPLOSION, On that fateful morning two clouds erupted almost simultaneously from the mountain, one following the other as if in chase. The first of these came from the open flue of the mountain chimney and lioated southward toward Horne Yert. It contained within itself all the chemical ingredients for the production of a violent electric storm. The second came from lower down the mountain, from ljlitana. an old vent or yol- canic cayern long ago clogged up by an accumulation of old material and sulpliurous gases. The two clouds in their race for the city touched: then from the higher body there rushed into the lower a host of electric sparks which. flashing into the QI rolling mass of superheated gases, created an explosion. the re- port of which startled communities 250 miles away. It did something more. By atmospheric concussion it rang the church bells of Barbadoes, ninety miles from Peleeg it struck dead the birds of the air and the sheep and cattle in the fields, it overturned and wrecked three sailing ships on their course to Rosseau, Island of Dominicag it poisoned the air in St. Pierre and asphyxiated those who escaped the hurricane of burning sand. If a cloud charged with electricity had followed and touch- ed the aerial mass that terrified the passengers of the lisk on that particular Sunday afternoon, this description would not now appear in your College Year Book, nor would there be anyone left alive to tell how the Esk disappeared and her people perished. From the disappearing cloud and falling sand we turned to look again upon the mountain. ' Its summit had cleared and the whole western spur gleamed white with a deposit of erupted matter. The cone had altered its outlines, it was reduced in height and a large fragment had been blown from its eastern side. Of the fear and horrible expectation of death which possessed and held the men and women around me l say nothing. I was v M ment portending sun. the waning settings. I had often tried to imagine the nervous condition and horror of the souls of the men, withering away with fear and expectation. left upon the earth when these awful calami- ties were at hand. and my imagination would not respond to my expectations and my hopes. Un that eventful Sunday after- familiar with the texts of the Xew lesta- the dissolution of the world. the darkening moon and the stars dropping from their noon I knew it all: the memory of it is with me now. and. like a second soul. will be mine till for me time shall be no more. XX' li ll

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Imp Seconb visit to St. llbierre, flbartinique-Gominueb apart and revealed the hot steam escaping from the crater of the volcano. High pressure steam generates electricity, and intermittently flashes of lightning played around the lips of the volcanic opening. High above the top of the mountain rose. as rises the spire over a great cathedral, the obelisk, of which you have read so much-the cone-which is built up with such marvelous rapidity to-day, and to-morrow or to-night is shattered in whole or in part by an explosion. On this Sunday afternoon, under the fierce blaze of a tropical sun, the obelisk shone like burnished metal, reflecting upon the trembling clouds an iridescence of striking beauty. W'hen I focused my glass upon the monstrous hill I could perceive jets of steam and puffs of smoke escape from nssures opened around the body of the crater. I saw the awful devastation, the wounds and frightful scars on the mountain's slope, the solidified lava that, in its fluid state, zigzagged now here, now there, the huge bowlders tossed aside by the rush of the burning river of magma and, above all, I saw the wreck and ruin of forest life that went down and out when the monster swept across it to get at St. Pierre. The steamer moored to a buoy off the Place du Mouillage, near the southern limit of St. Pierre proper, and many of the passengers were taken ashore in the ship's boats, manned by the crew of the steamer. I was again with the purser who, in his naphtha launch, was the hrst to leave the Esk, carrying with him our oflicial pass to visit the ruined city. Two mounted gendarmes-cavalrymen with police powers-received and ex- amined our permit, saluted, and asked the purser if he spoke French. The purser answered in English that he did not. And you, Rev. Sir? addressing himself to me. I do, sir, I replied, lifting my hat in obedience to the custom of the island. Then, sir, if you please, tell those ladies in the boats they ought not to land. There was a slight eruption of the volcano yesterday, and a more serious one is predicted for to-dayf' 'I he appearance of the destroyed city had changed very much Q0 since I saw it last October. Then it lay under a heavy pall of ashes. Since then the torrential rains, the winds, and maybe a tidal wave, had swept it clean in places, and left exposed walls that had been hidden by volcanic ash and the torrents of boil- ing mud that on the loth day of August had overwhelmed the unhappy city for the second time. Many of the streets in the llouillage quarter which had been filled up to the second storey of the houses, had returned to their normal levels, which permitted easier access and, for those of us who knew the city in other and happier days, helped to recognize the sites of familiar buildings. In some places the street pavements had been washed clean, exposing the rails of the tramway. lilfashings from the mountain had deposited fertile soil, and amid the ruins already a luxuriant vegetation was appearing. Vines and creepers were coiling themselves around blackened fragments and grass and weeds were growing in exposed places. In company with Mr. 'loseph Bouadie, of the St. Yin- cent Times, and Mr. Sproot, of the Kingstown Sentry, l. was struggling through the street of Victor Hugo making for the cathedral, where three priests and 1,700 whites, blacks and mulattoes perished on the eventful morning of May 8. when the l2sk's guns signalled her shore passengers to return. Almost at the same moment, and as if by concerted signal, a jet of white vapor escaped from the crater near the base of the cone. Then without further warning the mountain opened with a roar that reverberated through the ruined city and was heard far out at sea. From the womb of the angry Pelee there was discharged, high in air, a monstrous accumulation of in- candescent sand, ashes, scoria and burning rocks, which, fall- ing. apparently fused together, and like billows of cotton wool, gathering height and depth, rolled, tossed and tumbled down the side of the mountain. On hrst issuing from the crater the great thing was lurid, but as it raced downwards the dominant color was white, changing as it cooled to ashen gray. lifest- ward to the sea rolled the mighty mass, Between it and the ocean lay four miles of land stripped to the skin, and in three

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