1902.

Shortly after midnight the thunders ceased for a while, but by four
o'clock, two hours before the shadows of night had lifted, an ominous
cloud was seen flowing out to sea, followed in its train by streaks of
fiery cinders. The sun was barely above the horizon when the roaring
began again. The Vicar-General describes these sounds as follows: "I
distinguished clearly four kinds of noises; first the clap of thunder,
which followed the lightning at intervals of twenty seconds; then the
mighty muffled detonations of the volcano, like the roaring of many
cannon fired simultaneously; third, the continuous rumbling of the
crater, which the inhabitants designated the 'roaring of the lion,' and
then last, as though furnishing the bass for this gloomy music, the deep
noise of the swelling waters, of all the torrents which take their
source upon the mountain, generated by an overflow such as has never yet
been seen. This immense rising of thirty streams at once, without one
drop of water having fallen on the sea-coast, gives some idea of the
cataracts which must pour down upon the summit from the storm-clouds
gathered around the crater."

"Hundreds of agonized people," writes Heilprin, in his great scientific
work on the catastrophe, "had gathered to their devotions in the
Cathedral and the Cathedral Square, this being Ascension Day, but
probably there were not many among them who did not feel that the tide
of the world had turned, for even through the atmosphere of the sainted
bells, the fiery missiles were being hurled to warn of destruction. The
fate of the city and of its inhabitants had already been sealed.

"The big hand of the clock of the Military Hospital had just reached the
minute mark of 7:50 a.m. when a great brown cloud was seen to issue from
the side of the volcano, followed almost immediately by a cloud of
vapory blackness, which separated from it and took a course downward to
the sea. Deafening detonations from the interior preceded this
appearance, and a lofty white pennant was seen to rise from the summit
of the volcano.

"With wild fury the black cloud rolled down the mountain slope, pressing
closely the contours of the valley along which had previously swept the
mud-flow that overwhelmed the factory three days before, and spreading
fan-like to the sea.

"In two minutes, or less, it had reached the doomed city, a flash of
blinding intensity parted its coils, and St. Pierre was ablaze. The
clock of