The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1902-05-28


funnel shaped. All night this contin-
ued. and it was not until day came
that the flashes disappeared The dark
bank that covered the horizon toward
Martinique, however, did not fade
away with the breaking Of day, and
at s in the morning of the 9th Friday)
the whole section of the sky in that di-
rection seemed dark and troubled.
about o'clock Friday morning I
was sitting on one of the matches aft
with some of the other engineers and
officers of the ship, discussing the pc
cuIiar weather phenomena. l noticed
sort of grit that got into my mouth
from the end of the cigar l was smok-
ing.
"Then l noticed that grit was getting
on my clothes, and finally some one
suggested that we go forward of the
tunnels, so we would not get the dirt
on us. AS we went forward we met
one or two of the sailors from the
forecastle who wanted to know about
the dust that was falling on the ship.
Then we found that the grayish look
ing ash was sitting all over the ship,
both forward and aft.
every moment the ashes rained
down all over the ship and Mt the same
time grew thicker 4 few moments
later the lookout called down that we
were running into a fog bank dead
ahead. Fog banks in that section are
unheard of at 8 O'Clock in the morning
at this season. and we were more than
a hundred miles from land. and what
could fog and sand be doing there?
Before we knew it we were in the
fog, which proved to be big dense
bank of the same sand, and it rai1ed
down on us from every side. Venti-
lators were quickly brought to their
places, and later even the matches were
battened down. At first we thought
that the sand must have been blown
from shore. Then we decided that II
the captains figures were right we
wouldn't be near enough to shore to
have sand blow on us. and as we had
Just cleared Barbados we knew that
the captains figures had to be right.
lust as the storm of sand was at its
height Fourth Engineer Wild was near
" suffocated by it. but was easily re-
vived Just about this time it became
so dark we found it necessary to start
up the electric lights. and 1t was not
until after we got clear from the fog
that we turned the current off. In the
meantime they had burned from D
O'Clock in the morning until after 2 in
the afternoon.
'Then there was another anxious mo-
ment shortly after 8 o'clock. Third
Engineer Rennie had been running the
donkey engine when suddenly it chok-
ed, and when he finally got it clear
fro.a the sand or ashes he found the
was we discovered that it was not
sand, but some sort Of Il composition
that seemed to cut steel like emery.
Then came the danger that it would
get into the valves of the engine and
cut them out. and for several moments
all hands scurried about and helped
make the engine room tight, and even
then the ash drifted in and kept all tie
engine room force wiping the engines
| clear of it. Toward o'clock in the
afternoon of Friday we were practl-
| cally clear of the sand, but at ii O'Clock
! that night we ran into second bank
! of 1t. though not as bad as the first.
THAT night there were more of the
same electric phenomena toward Mar
| tiniaue. but it was not until we got into
| st. Lucia, where we saw the Roddam.
/ that we learned of the terrible disaster
at st. Pierre, and then we knew that
our sand was lava dust"
! The volcanic ash which fell on the
decks of the Horace was ground as fine
as rifle powder and was much finer
than that which covered the decks OF
the Ftona, which reached port 4 few
hours before.