, 1905-05-31
GROVE OF ST.. PIERRE
THICK BED OF SAND ABOVE Un.
FORTUNATE CITY.
Destruction That BIotted Out Gay
Paris Of the Antilles Now Almost
Forgotten-Nature Covering Her
Work With Tropical Luxuriance.

There is no better instance OF the
forgetfulness resultant upon a COL.
slant reading of the daily newspapers
than the almost complete lack of in
terest to-day in the appalling disaster
that overwhelmed the city of St.
Pierre only a short time ago. A dis
aster almost unprecedented in the
history of the human ace-a city of
more than 10000 inhabitants buried
beneath the fiery flood of Mont Pelee
the impression made upon the mind
Of the people has in its turn been
buried beneath the daily flood of what
passes for news-the details of as
saults. divorces, scandals, fires and
floods, so that to-day the mention of
the disaster of two years ago causes
a moments perpleXity as the listener
tries to remember when he had heard
of it before. Those upon whom the
Impression made by the awful erup-
ton has not yet been effaced may be
interested in the following brief les.
or ution of the present aspect of the
city, given by Colin Mckay. who has
lately returned from a visit paid to
the scene of the volcanic horror at
Martinique.
Where the city of st. Pierre once
tioucished." he said. there is a thick
bed of sand, which is already assum-
ing the appearance of a vast gray
granite rock. About nine year ago
| passed close by St. Pierre in the
evening and saw its white roofs. it's
towers and cupolas cleaning between
the fronded crests and 1.-THE gray
trunks of the royal palms and heard
the crash Of bands in its squares and
the tinkling of the mandolins upon
the French ships lying in the road
stead. But now the SCARED mass of
lava overs completely the gay Paris
OF the Antilles, with all its life and
color and music, as though it were
buried under a massive mausoleum
OF granite. There are no ruins-noth.
ing at all to indicate that a city of
$4,000 people had once lourisheS
there.
Before you rises the gaunt and
colossal cone Of Mont Pelee. with its
awful head yelled in lazy and pestifer-
GUS vapors, its scarlet lava streaked
slopes rent with gigantic assures and
wild gorges, and at its base, piled up
in primeval confusion, masses of the
blown-out crest and sides. The i'm
preston which the sight of Mont
Pelee. brooding in its uncleanly
clouds Of smoke above its hideous
and awful work, makes upon you is
difficult to define.
you are awed, but hardly Mortified.
In the presence of such evidence of
natures forces you are so impressed
with the grandeur INT majesty of her
efforts that you do not think of the
blotting out of such an Insignificant
thing as a city of men and their
, works.
ITO the southwark, where the sub
urbs of the city stretched over a level
plain, the earth washed down from
tho mountain sides by the rains has
formed a soil in which grass and
trees are beginning to grow in
patches. In a few years, no doubt,
tho tomb Of the city will be covered
with the vegetation of the tropics and
the now giant and Scared sides OF
| Pelee covered with forests of green.
All the rest Of the island has emerged
from its covering of ashes in new
beauty and greater l~uxuriance."-
Montreal Star.