THE
ERUPTION
OF
PELÉE
8
and Rufz, who visited it in 1851, immediately after the eruption of t h a t year, describe it as being about three hundred paces in circumference, and resting on a floor of m u d and pumice fragments. Their estimate is, I believe, an approximately correct one, although the lake is sometimes described as having been very much larger. Beyond the position t h a t it occupied, there was nothing to suggest for it the nature of a crater-lake, which the Martiniquians generally thought it to be. L a b a t refers to this summit lake in his work, published about 1724, b u t it would seem t h a t its crateral origin was assumed only after the publication b y Jonnès of his paper " Explorations Géologiques et Minéralogiques du Volcan éteint de la Montagne Pelée."* The reference to the lake is, however, not very clear; and the statement t h a t the " g r e a t crater is now converted into a l a k e " (translation) m a y very properly refer to the crater on the southwest side and to the Étang Sec. Jonnès could hardly have referred to the summit lake as occupying a large crater. † At the time of m y earliest visits to the summit of the volcano this attractive mountain tarn, which for m a n y years had been the central point for picnicking parties of an extensive region around, had disappeared, and no trace of the waters remained. The basin itself had been largely filled in with m a t t e r ejected from the volcano, so t h a t the floor lay only from two to three feet below the rim on the eastern side. The floor was still steaming over most of its part, and it gave out a peculiar " s t e a m e d " odor of mineral oil. My thermometer, thrust two and three inches beneath the surface, gave a temperature of from one hundred and twenty-four to one hundred and thirty-two degrees, and a t a somewhat deeper point, one hundred and sixty-three degrees. I n just w h a t manner the lake-water was thrown off as the result of the first eruption cannot be known; b u t it is reasonable to assume t h a t the greater p a r t of it m a y have been steamed off b y the heated ejecta t h a t were thrown into it. There is nothing to support the view t h a t it was in any way sucked into the crater and became a determining factor in the explosion. The lake-basin remains intact, and has undergone no changes beyond t h a t of infilling and contraction of its area. The plateau-summit of the volcano, which was thus partly occupied b y the basin of the Lac des Palmistes, slopes off southward in the direction of Morne Rouge, and " spills " off on the east and southeast in a gradual coalescence with the outer slopes of the mountain. On the southwest it ends abruptly with the wall of the crater. The westerly (or crater) wall of the b u t t e t h a t still represents the Morne de La Croix drops into the basin of the Étang Sec with a practically vertical face—à pic, to use the expression of French investigators. How much of the Morne de L a Croix fell with the first disruption it is impossible to say; b u t it is certain, as could easily be determined b y a comparison *Bulletin Société Philomatique de Paris, 182.0, p. 8. Pelée was ascended b y La Condamine, who also m a d e a m e a s u r e m e n t of t h e m o u n t a i n , b u t I h a v e been u n a b l e t o o b t a i n t h e record of observations m a d e on this visit. † T h e m a p a c c o m p a n y i n g L a b a t ' s " N o u v e a u V o y a g e a u x Isles de l ' A m é r i q u e " locates a lake (Lac des Palmistes?) on t h e m o u n t a i n .