The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1902-05-17
DESTRUCTIVE VOLCANIC UPHEAVAL.
City of st. Pierre, Island of Marti-
nique, Destroyed in Three Minutes
10000 Persons Perish.

| The northern part of the Island of Martini
que, in the French West Indies, has been the
scene of one of the most tremendous upheayals
of nature ever recorded in history.
Latest estimates from reliable sources put
the number of dead at 10000 Martinique
belongs to France, and is one of group of
islands known as the French West Indies,
| lying between the Caribbean Sea and the
Atlantic.
1t is officially confirmed that the whole city
of st. Pierre, the largest, richest and most
beautiful in the French islands of that region,
has been destroyed by an immense mass of
fire which was suddenly hurled from Mount
Pelee, Ito miles to the north, about or s
a. IN. Thursday. May g. Of the city's entire
population, which was 25, 400 at the last cen
sus, taken year ago, and of-the crews ofships
in the harbor, between 20 and 80 are believed
to be the only survivors.
1t is estimated that IL, 900 persisted in small
er towns and on plantations. Eighteen ships in
St. Pierre harbor were destroyed.
At last advices the eruptions continued.
A dispatch to the London Daily Mail from
Pointe-a Pitre, Guadeloupe, says nearly all
the destruction was wrought in three minutes
by tremendous shower of molten rocks and
I lava. All the inhabitants within four miles of
st. Pierre, tie dispatch says, were burned.
Survivors OF ship describe the scene as
being like glimpses of the Inferno.
Cable communication. with a number of
other islands in the French and British West
Indies is cut off and volcanoes on several of
the islands are threatening.
The tremendous loss of life is comparable
to that iB the eruption of Mount Krakatoa, in
the Strait of Suuda, between Java and Suma-
ira. from May to August, 1883, when 36,380
persons persisted, and to the Lisbon earth
quake of November l, 1866, in which $4,000
were killed, but pales before the great earth
quake in Canton, China, November 80, 1871,
in which 1000 lives were lost 1t far over
shadows the loss of lives in the destruction of
Pompeii and Herculaneum, August "a, A. ID.
70, in which between 1000 and 5000 lives
were lost.
SKETCH OF THE ISLANDS.
These volcanic islands have been slowly
piling up since the beginning of the tertiary
period. Their bases extend beneath the waters
for depth IS great as their SUBMITS project
above it, making their total height nearly TO-
600 feet above their submerged bases.
"The northern islands of the necklace, like
Saba and St. Eustatius, are simple crater
cones, but the center of the chain consists of
four larges islands. Guadaloupe, Dominica,
San Lucia and St. Vincent, each of which is
complicated mass of old volcanic vents
whose peaks attain their greatest height in
Mount Diablotim, Dominica, 4,747 feet above
the sea.
These VOLCANOES do not conform to the type
which most personshave in mind, for from them
flows no fiery stream of lava, nor do they al
ways give days of warning before there out
breaks On the other hand, their eruptions
consist of hot water, cinders and mud. Their
explosions come with terrific suddenness and
when least expected.
In VOLCANOES which eject lava the ascending
column of molten liquid vibrates the earth for
days or months before it reaches the surface,
and the people of the vicinity can foretell the
eruptons This is not so with the cinder type,
for they explode suddenly and do their dam
age without much warning.
1t has been so long since any explosions
have occurred in Martinique that most geo.
graphers as well as the inhabitants of the is
land had considered that the forces which pro-
duced them were spent and classified the
mountains extinct VOLCANOES. 1t is true that a
mountain in Guadeloupe has sent up from its
summit fromtime immortal faint puffs ofsteam,
and that upon Dominica and other of the is
lands there were few hot springs, but for
years there has not been the slightest sign of an
explosion. There is also an old crater on the
island of San Lucia which contains boiling
springs.
WHAT PELEE PROBABLY DID.
What happened at Mount Pelee was prob
ably this gigantic explosion of steam and
gas, accompanied by shower of redhot Gin
ders which, falling upon the houses and ship
ping, burned and buried them.
Volcanism is still one of the most profound
problems which defes the power of biologists
to explain, and one of its peculiarities is the
fact that it sometimes breaks forth simultane
ously in widely distant portions of the earth.
A sympathetic relation of this kind has long
been known between Hecla and Vesuvius, and
it is probable that the Carib VOLCANOES have
some such sympathetic relation with the vol
canos of Central America and Southern
Mexico.
ISLAND OF ST. VINCENT.
The eruption of the Soufriere volcano con-
tinues, and the Island of st. Vincent is cover
ed with dust and ashes, in some places to a
depth of two feet Several districts we're de-
stroyed by the overfows of lava which occur
red on Wednesday and again on Friday of last
week, and the loss of life there is estimated at
1000.
Later accounts, on Monday, state that the
volcano was still in eruption and earthquakes
are destroying what was not destroyed by lava
and hot ashes.