The New Spine of Mont Pelée, showing Fissures and Vertical Grooves

Photographed on March 15th, 1903. The spine was then 82 feet lower than it became ten days later.

The New Spine of Mont Pelée, viewed from the Basin of the Lac des Palmistes

The apex, 1174 feet above the rim directly in front; the remains of Morne la Croix on the edge of the crater at the right.

A violent eruption would reduce its mass and its steeple-like pinnacle; but after its losses it generally pushed up again. Professor Heilprin at last got near enough to observe it, and the obelisk was found to be not of pumice stone, as had at first been suspected, but of the hard rock we have mentioned. It had, in fact, been comparable to a Titanic cork of rock which had closed up some vent far down in the crust of the earth, and which had at last been lifted by the steam pressure beneath it. It finally sank back into the crater, but it was replaced by a dome of rock which underwent similar changes in height, though on a smaller scale, to those of the obelisk. The dome of rock was, however, on a more massive scale even than the obelisk, and at one period of its career a spine, 100 feet in height, like a smaller obelisk, was pushed up through its middle. This dome was examined by the explorers, the Abbé Yvon and M. Beaufroy, who found that the dome was a great mass of andesite, while about it were fragments of the rock of which the obelisk had been composed. They wrote at the time:—

"It is an error to suppose that there exists in the bottom of Mount Pelée a hole from which lava and gases have come out. At present there is a tremendous cork of andesite, which is called the 'Dome,' and which must have as its dimensions a diameter half a mile across at its base and a height of about 1200 feet. On all sides of the dome there are fumaroles (small cone-like craters), some of which throw out a reddish smoke, others of which discharge white smoke, and others are still surrounded with a carpet of sulphur several yards in depth."

After the great eruption of Mount Pelée in 1902 it was found by measurement that a considerable portion of the adjacent sea bottom had sunk down many fathoms. It is impossible to believe that this sinking had been caused by the mere shaking of the earthquakes accompanying that eruption. We must, therefore, suppose that after the dreadful explosions which destroyed St. Pierre and devastated Martinique a subsidence near the roots of the mountain (which is just by the sea) took place. What we should judge to have happened is that by some means an explosion took place below the sea bottom; that parts of the molten rock, moved by the forces of the explosion, were moved towards the mountain (Mount Pelée), which thereupon broke into eruption, acting as an outlet for the imprisoned rocks. When these molten rocks were thus removed a great cavity was formed in the bed of the sea, which accordingly caved in.

A similar explanation would account for the raising of the Chilian coast-line after the great earthquakes of 1835, of which we have already spoken. The coast and, indeed, the whole country back to the Andes was slightly raised. This could only be explained by the pushing in or forcing in of a corresponding bulk of lava under the land; and this lava could come from nowhere except from under the bed of the great trough in the adjacent sea. After an explosion (which is caused by the sea penetrating through to the molten rocks) the trough, where the "accident" first took place, would naturally deepen.

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The Dead City of St. Pierre, Martinique

The town of St. Pierre was perhaps the most beautiful in the West Indies. The volcano of Mont Pelée, which is seen in the background, and which is five miles away, suddenly belched out deadly gases, dust, steam, and boiling mud, which overwhelmed the town and completely destroyed it. The houses were reduced to ruins, and the people were killed by the wave of hot gases sweeping down from the volcano.