lready existed a number of
submarine craters from which gases were being projected, to explode when
coming in contact with the air.

"Having retired for the night, at about nine o'clock, I awoke shortly
afterwards in the midst of a suffocating heat and completely bathed in
perspiration.... I awoke again about eleven thirty-five, having felt a
trembling of the earth ... but again went to sleep, waking at half-past
seven. My first observation was of the crater, which I found
sufficiently calm, the vapors being chased swiftly under pressure of an
east wind.

"At about eight o'clock, when still watching the crater (M. Arnoux was
the only man who saw the beginning of the eruption and lived to tell the
tale), I noted a small cloud pass out, followed two seconds after by a
considerable cloud, whose flight to the Pointe de Carbet (beyond the
city) _occupied less than three seconds_, being at the same time already
in our zenith, thus showing that it developed almost as rapidly in
height as in length. The vapors were of a violet-gray color and
seemingly very dense, for, although endowed with an almost inconceivably
powerful ascensive force, they retained to the zenith their rounded
summits. Innumerable electric scintillations played through the chaos of
vapors, at the same time that the ears were deafened by a frightful
fracas.

"I had, at this time, an impression that St. Pierre had been
destroyed.... As the monster seemed to near us, my people,
panic-stricken, ran to a neighboring hillock that dominated the house,
begging me to do the same.... Hardly had we arrived at the summit when
the sun was completely veiled, and in its place came almost complete
blackness.... At this time we observed over St. Pierre, a column of
fire, estimated to be 1,200 feet in height, which seemed to be endowed
with the movement of rotation as well as onward movement." St. Pierre
was no more.

Rescuers were soon on their way. Twenty-three minutes after the clouds
had been seen rising from Mont Pelee and the cable and telephone lines
were broken, a little steamer left Fort-de-France, the capital. It
reached half-way, then, finding that the rain of stones and ashes
threatened to sink it, returned. The boat started anew at ten o'clock
and rounded the point of Carbet. The volcano was shrouded in smoke and
ashes. For three miles the coast was in flames. Seventeen vessels in the
roadstead, two of which were American steamers, burned at anchor. The
hea