THE ERUPTION OF PELÉE
57
On the other hand, the detonations heard at corresponding times a t P o r t of Spain, Trinidad, a t Carúpano, Venezuela, and in the island of St. Kitts—localities removed from two hundred and seventy-five to three hundred and twentyfive miles away in opposite directions—have been likened to the firing of heavy siege-guns. The officers of the Fontabelle, among others, assured me t h a t this had been the case in P o r t of Spain. I t seems t h a t the detonations were noted on the Venezuelan coast far beyond Carúpano, where rather severe earthquake shocks were also recorded. The report of United States Consul Plumacher, at Maracaibo, published in the Monthly Weather Review, gives the important record t h a t on the morning of the first great eruption of Pelée (May 8) terrific detonations were heard in the region of his post, which was about eight hundred miles from Martinique. These sounds were recognized to be not of " h e a v y artillery," which they had been thought to be b y a servant, for " I knew t h a t . . . if all of the cannons of Venezuela were fired together, they could not produce such sounds. I t was not like cannonading with heavy siege-guns; it was neither thunder, nor the strange, unpleasant subterranean sounds of convulsions of the earth; it was as if immense explosions were fired high u p in the clouds." This was also remarked at P o r t of Spain as a feature of the detonations accompanying the eruption of August 30. With the intensity of sound t h a t manifested itself at Maracaibo, it is fair to presume t h a t the detonations were markedly audible two or three hundred miles farther, or perhaps at a full distance from the seat of disturbance of a thousand miles. Humboldt states t h a t " t h e frightful subterranean noise, like the thundering of cannon, produced b y the violent eruption of the latter volcano [the Soufrière of St. Vincent] on the 30th of April, 1812, was heard on the distant grass plains (llanos) of Calabozo, and on the shores of the Rio Apure, one hundred and ninety-two geographical miles farther to the west t h a n its junction with t h e Orinoco" (" Cosmos," Bohn's edition, V, p. 422)—a point fully eight hundred miles in a direct line from the island of St. Vincent. I t is interesting to note t h a t , while the noise of the Pelée eruptions of May 8 and August 30, as heard a t Maracaibo, 800 miles distant, at Carúpano, on the Venezuelan coast, and a t P o r t of Spain, on the island of Trinidad, appears to have come from above, or, as stated b y Consul Plumacher, to have originated in the clouds, such detonations have very generally been described as being subterranean, the propagation of the sound-waves being readily facilitated b y the solid rock-masses. Thus, Humboldt, referring to the eruption of Cotopaxi in 1744,* states t h a t the propagated noise, which was heard at a distance of a t least 436 miles, was surely subterranean; and Scherzer, who received testimony of witnesses of the e v e n t , t states t h a t at the time of the great eruption of Coseguina the detonations, which were carried hundreds of miles, appeared subterranean. Probably no exact reason can be assigned for these differences * " Cosmos," B o h n ' s edition, I., p. 203. † " W a n d e r u n g e n , " 1857, pp. 479 et seq.