The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1905-06-11
GHOULS DELVE IN RUINS
OF A BLASPHEMOUS CITY

/.
and there have been many valuable finds
In the little family vaults or close TO
glistening skeletons. The vast sepulchre
has been we'll picked over, and 1t soon
will be deserted even by the ghouls of
surviving relatives. Their excavations,
which resemble prospect holes, cover the
site of the city and give it at close range
the appearance of a deserted mining
camp.
Except for the grave robbers and few
patrolling gendarfnes to protect the I'M
hallowed graves from looters, there Is
not a sign of life in ST. Pierre. Rue Vic
tor Hugo, which was the principal street
of the city, and which was buried under
from two to five feet of volcanic ash,
was cleaned out by the government for
nearly a mile. and the stones from the
falling buildings piled up in the same
way to give a plantation back of the
town an outlet to the sea, but the work
of restoration stopped there.
The government would like to see a
new city rise from the ashes of St.
Pierre, and Victor Hugo street was
opened up in the hope that the people
would go in and rebuild the city. But
the natives would have none of it. To
them the great graveyard is an accursed
place, and none but the treasure-hunters
and the police are brave enough to in
wade its solitude. Some day, perhaps, if
, Mount Pelee again goes to sleep, St
Pierre may be rebuilt but not by the
present generation or its children, They
are firm in the belief that 1t was because
God was angry with st. Pierre that the
town was destroyed, and that If there
was any attempt to build 1t up again His
anger would be visited on the third and
fourth generations.
Grim old Pelee stubbornly refuses to
show any marked signs of approaching
slumber. # smokes constantly, and there
are frequent mild eruptions of red-hot
mud and powders. Occasionally there
Is a heavy eruption, accompanied by the
discharge of enormous clouds of black
smoke, filled with explosive gases, like
that which swept down over st. Pierre,
and the whole north end of the island
is shaken in the fashion of three years
ago.
Mountains Contour Changed.
The successive eruptions have effected
marked change in the contour of the
top of the mountain, around the crater.
The great cone. which was built up in
the crater to a height of 1900 feet in 1903,
and stood like a sentinel guarding the
volcano, has fallen in. The summit of
the mountain, which formerly was grace
fully rounding, has disappeared with the
now forms the main crater, which is
shaped like a bowl, with serrated sides.
One of the points, near the place where
the cone was raised, is 100 feet high. but
the others are much smaller, and of
about uniform size. Inside Of the bowl,
so far down that IL cannot be plainly
seen through the sulphurous smoke, is
a molten mass of boiling mud.
The V-shaped cleft from which came
the blast that wiped out st. Pierre and
through which the red hot mud Is poured
when the volcano boils over, has shared
in the changed contour of the summit.
Formerly all of the discharges, whether
gases or solids, were thrown out in
southwesterly direction and right over
st. Pierre. Now they are discharged to
the northwest and the ruined city escapes
entirely, as is proved by the returning
vegetation.
The line of fire, or zone of comple'
destruction, is as clearly defined as 1t
was in the eruption which destroyed st.
Pierre and those Immediately following
it. The river Seche, running almost due
west from the volcano Is the dividing
line. South of the narrow ravine through
which the Seche ran before II was dried
up by Pelee and on down through st.
Pierre the grass is four feet high and so
thickly interviewer with vines that walk
ing through it is a task. The plateau
between the rivers Seche and Blanche,
which leads directly to the crater, and
the country north of 1t around to a line
drawn straight north from the crater,
within which region the volcano now ex-
erts all of its activity, shows not single
blade of grass nor solitary tree. On