Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
7
'he Night had Vanished':
Vorticism and the Volcano
The first volcanic eruption of scale and substance in the twentieth
century shook the West Indies in May 1902. The Windward
islands of Dominica, Martinique, St Lucia and St Vincent, which
run due south in a thin line towards the coast of Venezuela,
burned and broiled as their volcanoes went off like firecrackers
on the tail of a cat. They and most of the West Indies chain are
a system of volcanoes that runs along the line of the relatively
small Caribbean Plate as it meets the South American Plate. The
town of Saint-Pierre on Martinique was completely destroyed
by the volcano Mount Pelée, with comparatively lesser damage
done on St Lucia and St Vincent when their volcanoes, both
named Souffrière, erupted in sympathy. At home in England,
responding to press reports, the diarist Mary Monkswell wrote
these eloquent words on the terrible events:
A second Pompeii. On this awful day the island of Martinique,
a French colony in the W. Indies was, after a long threatening
but literally at about 5 minutes notice, completely enveloped
by burning lava and mud from the volcano La Pelée, and
some thirty to forty thousand people at once suffocated.
All the ships in the harbour were at once set fire to and
sunk except one, the
Rhoddam
, an English steamer, whose
steam was fortunately up. The Captain (Freeman), a
Glasgow man, whose hand I should like to shake, in spite
of seeing half his crew fall dead and his ship on fire in 40
places, and frightful burns and injuries to himself, had the
