The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1903-09-13

nA HE strangest event connected
with the recent activity of
Mont Pelee. not even except
ing its sensational humiliation
HHn Of the city of St. Pierre, is
doubtless that which is now
taking pIace-the pushing forth from its
summit Of an enormous obelisk of pol
ished rock as a cork is pushed from a
soda water bottle by the expanding gas
within This wonder is thus described in
Science august y by Professor Angelo
Heilprin. He says:
Not the least remarkable of the many
extraordinary conditions that have been
associated with the recent eruptiOns OF
the Martinique volcano is the extrusion
of the giant tower of rock, a veritable
obelisk, which to-day dominates the noun
tain, and which has given to it an added
height of 500 to 800 feet. Pelee is no
longer 1900 or 1923 feet in elevation, which
it had been prior to the eruption of May
g. 1902 but upward of 5000 feet This tower
of rock, the nature of which was first
properly made known by Professor La
croix, issues directly, and to all intents
and purposes vertically, from the summit
of the new cone of the volcano (of what
ever precise nature this cone may be)
which has been built up in the ancient
crateral-basin (the Etang Sec to height
of 1900 feet or more, and virtually plugs
it Where it is implanted 1t has a thick
ness of some geo to $50 feet. From certain
points of view the obelisk seems to main
tain for most of its height $500 plus
feet) a fairly uniform thickness; from
other points it shows a rapidly tapering
surface with a termination in a needle
ls11r mil gently
curved or arched toward the southwest,
or in the direction of St. Pierre, and on
this face it is cavernous or openly shaggy,
showing where successive and repeated
| explosions had carried away portions of
the substance. On the opposite side or
/ toward the east-northeast, the surface
( appears solid, is smoothed and even pol
ished in part and shows longitudinal par
| allel grooves and striae, very much like
| glacial markings. On this side it shows
plainly the marks of hard attrition, the
effect of rubbing upon the encasing rock
4 the mold, in fact, that determined pOr-
| ton of the exit channel.
1.-The constitution of this extruded
cork is undeniably lava-a lava whose
viseosity or rapid solidihcation did not
| permit it to flow over. but which under
/ the giant stress of the volcano simply
moved upward, solid from base to sum-
NIT, and receiving accretiOns to its mass
/
! animation of the relations existing would
| Immediately point to this form of growth
/ and development, but the carefully con-
! Quoted angle measurements and observa-
| tons of contour made by the represent
! atives at two stations of the French Sci
] entific Commission leave no possibility
of doubt in the matter, and they further
| furnish US with data touching the rate of
| growth. Thus, in eight days preceding
June this growth was, as We are in
formed by NJ. Giraud, ten meters (thir-
ty-three feet; and in the four DAYS
preceding June Is "a period within the
time of my recent visit to the volcano) it
| measured six meters twenty feet. The
consideration of the depth to which this
giant monument descends solid into the
volcano would be interesting were there
| any way of reaching the problem, but
| for the present there would seem to be
none SUCH
ION June 13 last, in company with NJ
GuInoiseau-one of the observers of the
French commission-I made the ascent OF
Pelee, and from the immediate crater rim
took a series of photographs Of Pelee's
singular process, probably the most i'm
pressive piece of nature that 1 had evel
SEEN The volcano, by comparison witt
what it had been before, had 'slumberec
down to peace but yet it was too ac-
tive to permit us to descend into the era.
teral hollow, 800 to $50 feet in depth, tina