The Palatka news and advertiser. [volume] (Palatka, Fla.) 1908-19??, 1914-09-04
UNDER A VOLCANO
A Town That Lives In Perennial
Dread of Extinction.
COLIMA'S CRATER IN ACTION.
It's a Solemn Spectacle For the Dwell
ers In the Shadow of the Gloomy
Peak When "OId Faithful" ExpIodes,
as It Does Regularly Once a Year.


ers In the Shadow of the Gloomy
Peak When "OId Faithful" ExpIodes
as It Does Regularly Once Year.
1t is singular how Indifferent to a
persistently threatened danger human
beings can become. even when the dan.
ger is of a deadly nature and may
imperil their very lives. Harry II.
Dunn, in the Montreal Herald and
Star. tells of case in which whole
townful of people lie under the con
slant threat of extinction by Il volcano.
The roof of the little bOXlike hotel in
Colima. capital of the state of Colima,
in Mexico, was freshly drenchCd with
water in Il vain effort to fight off some
of September's heat. think there were
eighteen of us gathered there in the
cool, gray night. The almost silent
town lay like black and white check
erboard at our feet.
Twenty miles away, across n valley
still green with the rains Of summer,
rose a conical mountain almost soli'
tary. Even by night it looked sinister;
by day it was terrible, with its barren.
lava coated sides, its gas eXuding cone
stunned even by the vultureS which
haunted mountain and plain. 1t was
the volcano of Colima, the "Old Faith
full" of craters. which eXplodes regu-
arly once Il yGar-and it was almost
due for an eXhiletion.
He should begin soon" droned the
hotel keeper Maybe today, maybe TO-
is the middle of September, and it is
his time"
The Cd man had scarcely finished
when II bubble. black as night, crowd
I'd itself out of the broken end of the
mountain. which we knew was pot of
molten stone, twenty miles away. The
bubble. so dark that we could see ii
plainly. swciled like growing pufIball
and then, pushed out from below. rose
ike n giant umbrella. with incredible
speed. into the sky. Behind it came Il
straight tu5uar column Of smoke, such
smoke us that of which the bubble was
made. black and thick and ominouS.
TIP. up. up. rose the bubble, riding, it
seemed. on the column below it. 1t APP
pcarcd to hang like Il huge blanket Il
thousand feet in the heavens; then
slowly. like some great octopus feeling
its way along the bed of the sea, the
bubble latrened and began to spread
out Probably it moved miles every
minute, but it was far away and so
monStrous that we could not judge it
by ordinary standards.
1t seemed that the town below us
heavcd long sigh. The thing for
which its ten or twelve thousand in
habitants had been waiting was about
to happen. The mighty drama was
as it was before the Spanish cOnquis-
tadorcs set foot on Mexican soil. Yet
to them the spectacle was ever eXcit-
ing. for its end might be death, might
he destruction of their town. as it had
been the destruction Of the many small
er towns clustered more closely round
the skirts of the gloomy peak.
Tho roofs filled with neople Here
,,,d thnre = woman screamed: many.
hath mon and women. prayed; uueru.
inns cries and ourstious from children
rose on the night air, and the bells in
tba churches becon 70 ring. slowly at
first ana then more rapidly, as the fire