Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1902-05-19
Steam the Cause.


presence of water in contact with the
volcanic fires of Mont Pelee, TO miles
away. The steam thus generated
bIew the mountains head off, as Prof.
Hovev. of the New York natural his
tory museum, explains, just as hot
boiler explodes when cold water is
carelessly introduced.
All the conditions invited calamity.
The island is of volcanic origin, being
little more than a ridge joining two
threatening peaks. From Pelee TO st.
Pierre the descent is short and steep,
and there was no way to escape when
fame flashed down upon the town and
set 1t almost instantly ablaZe, followed
by rain of hot mud and ashes and
choking sulphuric gas.
Pelee is one of many volcanoes that
frown on populous scenes. Naples is
beyond danger from Vesuvius, but a
great eruption might wipe out many
nearer towns and be as destructive as
was the great one of A. D. 70, when
Pompeii city of 10000 people and
Herculaneum and other towns were
destroyed in 1859 and 1893 when
escape than then fed to safety.
Under Etna live 100000 people, in
Guiding 100000 in Catania which was
destroyed in 1859 and 1893 whom
from $4,000 to 100000 people were
killed. A Lisbon earthquake as severe
as that of Nov. ], 1855, would Stay
more than the 10000 to 10000 people
who are supposed to have then
persisted.
The volcano is versatile. It calls
the earthquake to aid; some men 1t
Stays by covering them with hot lava
which cOOls into solid rock as at
Herculaneum; some it buries IN
soft lava dust, as at Pompeii; some
it boils in mud, as at Bandaisan,
Japan, in 1895. Against sea-coasts 1t
hUrls huge tidal-waves, as when the
Krakatoa eruption of 1888 "sent your
stOuteSt steamships TO roOst with the
Startled crows in tree-tops, and when
nearly 10000 people persisted.
The eruption of ST. P. ere is I'M
exampIed in it's swift and terrible
of the population and the nearness OF
the source of danger which made that
unhappy place. hitherto known to
most readers mainly as the childhood
home OF the Empress Josephine, the
victim of a calamity Of seldom
equalled completeness of horror.
PeIee Grumbled Before.
No one in late years, perhaps, has
given to the world a more thorcuPh
and interesting study Of the island OF
Martinique, it's people, character and
customs, and that sometimes sleeping,
sometimes waking terror of the whole
land the volcano of Mont Pelee, than
has L,afcadio Hearn0. In writing of
it twelve years ago in his Two Years
i'll the French West Indies, he says:
us the great volcano dead? No
body knows. Less than forty years
ago it rained ashes over all the roofs
of st. Pierre-within twenty years it
has muttered. For the moment it ap-
pears to sleep, and the clouds have
dripped into the cup of it's highest
crater till it has become a lake
several hundred yards in circum-
ference. The crater occupied by this
lake, called LEtang, or the pool, has
never been active within human
memory. There are others-dificult
and dangerous to visit because open
ing on the side of tremendous gorge;
and it was one of these, no doubt,
which has always been called La Sen
ffriere, that rained ashes over the
city in 1851. The explosion was al
most concomitant with the last of a
series of earthquake shocks, which
began in the middle of May and ended
in the first week of August-all much
more severe in Gaudeloupe than in
Martinique. On August much
trepidation was caused by long and
appalling noise from the mountain-a
noise compared to the hollow roaring
made by a packet blowing off steam,
but infinitely louder.
These sounds continued through
intervals until the following night,
sometimes deepening into a rumble
like thunder At IL D. m the noise
was terrible enough to fill all st.
Pierre with alarm, and on the morn
ing of the 9Th the city presented an
unwonted aspect, compared by creoIes
who had lived abroad to the effect of
a great hOar-frOst
All the roofs. trees, balconies,
awnings. pavements were covered
with white layer of ashes. The
same shower bIanched the roofs OIL
Morne Rouge and all the villages
about the chief city-Carbet Fond
Core, and Au Precheur; also whiten-
ing the neighboring country; the
mountain was sending up columns OF
smoke or vapor, and it was noticed
that the Riviere Blanche, usually of
glaucOus color, ran black into the
sea like an outpouring of ink, stain
ing its azure for mile.
For a long time Pelee continued to