Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-01-24

Pelee," said Captain Lebaffe,s ''but II Vesu-
vius were looking as your volcano looks
this morning I'd get out OF Naples, and
I'm going to get out of here. ''7t
The captain was threatened with arrest
and told that he would have to sail with
out his clearance papers, which would mean
his arrest at Havre If he sailed without
full cargo.
"All right, replied the captain, 'I'll take
my chances of arrest, but not of that vol
cano."' He sailed and in less than twenty
four hours the men who protested against
his departure were all dead, while the Ital-
ian bark was many miles to sea on her way
to Havre.
Descriptive of the Eruption.
Mr.. Remnants description Of the catastro-
phe was most graphic "a little before
o'clock there were three or four big gun
reports he began. .'and two minutes past
8 o'clock, by the time of the French Gable
Company. the volcano suddenly exploded,
with great roar in two different direc-
lions. One discharge Of exceedingly black
vapor, pierced with lightning flashes, went
directly upward from the main crater, while
the other shot out laterally, apparently from
new assure in the side Of that crater, and
swept the whole southwestern slope of the
mountain.
Both discharges consisted of superheated
steam, carrying immense quantities of in
tensely hot dust, and both probably had
an initial velocity of 500 or 600 feet per sec
ond The two blasts were parts of the
same discharge and one of them happened
to go toward ST. Pierre, because the wall of
the crater blew out laterally on that side
and let the steam out. When this blast
struck st. Pierre it produced all the effects
that a West Indian hurricane would pro-
duce if the hurricane air had ,tempera-
ture, say, of $50 degrees and were sweep
ing along with 1t great quantities OF fine
sand and small stones, which were hotter
than the blast that carried them. All OF
the trees in the track of the blast We're
blown down or stripped of their branches;
most of the houses were unroofed,- partly
demolished and set on fire by the hot dust,
and all the vessels in the roadstead except
two were capsized and totally wrecked
Entire Population Perishes.
1.-THE whole population Of st, Pierre per-
ished, with the exception of woman In a
cellar, who died shortly after being taken
out, and a negro prisoner in the dungeon of
the city Jail. Thousands were killed by
stones and falling walls, and thousands
more by the intense heat of the blast and
the still greater heat of the dust with winch
it was discharged. The city TOOK nre from
end to end and soon became roaring fur-
mace. and the badly burned survivors of the
blast must finally have been roasted to
death in the streetsr The discharge was
followed almost Immediately by total dark
ness, ana Win the daTkHesS Cdne d ASHt
shower of small stones, and this was imme-
diately followed by heavy rain so densely
charged with ashes that 1t covered every
thing with a sticky plaster and felt like
downpour Of liquid mud.
ut would be impossibleHto imagine any
thing more frightfuf and appalling than
was the environment sof tie surviving sail
ors on the Romania The impenetrable
gloom; the falling stones and pumice the
wrecked steamer. covered with ashes and
blazing fore and AFT the flames of the
burning city, seen dimly through a rain of
liquid mud; the laundering of the invisible
volcano; the cries and groans OF the dying,
and the mysterious 'suddenness and horror
of the whole catastrophe must have shaken
the nerves If not theireason OF the bravest
men, a4E-