Part 32 (1/2)
EXTRAORDINARY RED SUNSETS
The red sunsets spoken of above were so extraordinary in character that a fuller description of them seems advisable. A remarkable fact concerning them is the great rapidity with which they were disseminated to distant regions of the earth. They appeared around the entire equatorial zone in a few days after the eruption, this doubtless being due to the great rapidity with which the volcanic dust was carried by the upper air current. They were seen at Rodriguez, 3,000 miles away, on August 28, and within a week in every part of the torrid zone. From this zone they spread north and south with less rapidity. Their first appearance in Australia was on September 15th, and at the Cape of Good Hope on the 20th. On the latter day they were observed in California and the Southern United States. They were first seen in England on November 9th. Elsewhere in Europe and the United States they appeared from November 20th to 30th.
The effect lasted in some instances as long as an hour and three-quarters after sunset. In India the sun and skies a.s.sumed a greenish hue, and there was much curiosity regarding the cause of the ”green sun.” Another remarkable phenomenon of this period was the great prevalence of rain during the succeeding winter. This probably was due to the same cause; that is, to the fact of the air being so filled with dust; the prevailing theory in regard to rain being that the existence of dust in the air is necessary to its fall. The vapor of the air concentrates into drops around such minute particles, the result being that where dust is absent rain cannot fall.
As regards the sunsets spoken of, there are three similar instances on record. The first of these was in the year 526, when a dry fog covered the Roman Empire with a red haze. Nothing further is known concerning it. The other instances were in the years 1783 and 1831. The former of these has been traced to the great eruption of Skaptur Jokull in that year. It lasted for several months as a pale blue haze, and occasioned so much obscurity that the sun was only visible when twelve degrees above the horizon, and then it had a blood-red appearance. Violent thunderstorms were a.s.sociated with it, thus a.s.similating it with that of 1883. Alike in 1783 and 1831 there was a pearly, phosph.o.r.escent gleam in the atmosphere, by which small print could be read at midnight. We know nothing regarding the meteorological conditions of 1831.
The red sunsets of 1883 were remarkable for their long persistence.
They were observed in the autumn of 1884 with almost their original brilliancy, and they were still visible in 1885, being seen at intervals, as if the dust was then distributed in patches, and driven about by the winds. In fact, similar sunsets were occasionally visible for several years afterwards. These may well have been due to the same cause, when we consider with what extreme slowness very fine dust makes its way through the air, and how much it may be affected by the winds.
THE RED SUNSETS DESCRIBED
One writer describes the appearance of these sunsets in the following terms: ”Immediately after sunset a patch of white light appeared ten or fifteen degrees above the horizon, and shone for ten minutes with a pearly l.u.s.tre. Beneath it a layer of bright red rested on the horizon, melting upward into orange, and this pa.s.sed into yellow light, which spread around the lucid spot. Next the white light grew of a rosy tint, and soon became an intense rose hue. A vivid golden oriole yellow strip divided it from the red fringe below and the rose red above.” This description, although exaggerated, represents the general conditions of the phenomenon.
On October 20th, 1884, the author observed the sunset effect as follows: ”Immediately after the sun had set, a broad cone of silvery l.u.s.tre rested upon a horizon of smoky pink. After fifteen minutes the white became rose color above and yellowish below, deepening to lemon color, and finally into reddish tint, while the rose faded out. The whole cone gradually sank and died away in the brownish red flush on the horizon, more than an hour after sunset.” The time of duration varied, since, on the succeeding evening, it lasted only a half-hour. These sunset effects, if we can justly attribute them all to the Krakatoa eruption, were extraordinary not alone for their intensity and beauty but for their extended duration, the influence of this remarkable volcanic outbreak being visible for several years after the event.
Though no doubt is entertained concerning the cause of the red sunset effects of 1783 and 1883, that of 1831 is not so readily explained, there having been no known volcanic explosion of great intensity in that year. But in view of the fact that volcanoes exist in unvisited parts of the earth, some of which may have been at work unknown to scientific man, this difficulty is not insuperable. Possibly Mounts Erebus or Terror, the burning mountains of the Antarctic zone, may, unseen by man, have prepared for civilized lands this grand spectacular effect of Nature's doings.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Mount Pelee and its Harvest of Death.
St. Pierre, the princ.i.p.al city of the French island of Martinique, in the West Indies, lies for the length of about a mile along the island coast, with high cliffs hemming it in, its houses climbing the slope, tier upon tier. At one place where a river breaks through the cliffs, the city creeps further up towards the mountains. As seen from the bay, its appearance is picturesque and charming, with the soft tints of its tiles, the grey of its walls, the clumps of verdure in its midst, and the wall of green in the rear. Seen from its streets this beauty disappears, and the chief attraction of the town is gone.
Back from the three miles of hills which sweep in an arc round the town, is the n.o.ble Montagne Pelee lying several miles to the north of the city, a ma.s.s of dark rock some four thousand feet high, with jagged outline, and cleft with gorges and ravines, down which flow numerous streams, gus.h.i.+ng from the crater lake of the great volcano.
Though known to be a volcano, it was looked upon as practically extinct, though as late as August, 1856, it had been in eruption. No lava at that time came from its crater, but it hurled out great quant.i.ties of ashes and mud, with strong sulphurous odor. Then it went to rest again, and slept till 1902.
The people had long ceased to fear it. No one expected that grand old Mount Pelee, the slumbering (so it was thought) tranquil old hill, would ever spurt forth fire and death. This was entirely unlooked for. Mont Pelee was regarded by the natives as a sort of protector; they had an almost superst.i.tious affection for it. From the outskirts of the city it rose gradually, its sides grown thick with rich gra.s.s, and dotted here and there with spreading shrubbery and drooping trees. There was no pleasanter outing for an afternoon than a journey up the green, velvet-like sides of the towering mountain and a view of the quaint, picturesque city slumbering at its base.
A PEACEFUL SCENE
There were no rocky cliffs, no crags, no protruding boulders. The mountain was peace itself. It seemed to promise perpetual protection.
The poetic natives relied upon it to keep back storms from the land and frighten, with its stern brow, the tempests from the sea. They pointed to it with profoundest pride as one of the most beautiful mountains in the world.
Children played in its bowers and arbors; families picnicked there day after day during the balmy weather; hundreds of tourists ascended to the summit and looked with pleasure at the beautiful crystal lake which sparkled and glinted in the suns.h.i.+ne. Mont Pelee was the place of enjoyment of the people of St. Pierre. I can hear the placid natives say: ”Old Father Pelee is our protector--not our destroyer.”
Not until two weeks before the eruption did the slumbering mountain show signs of waking to death and disaster. On the 23d of April it first displayed symptoms of internal disquiet. A great column of smoke began to rise from it, and was accompanied from time to time by showers of ashes and cinders.
Despite these signals, there was nothing until Monday, May 5th, to indicate actual danger. On that day a stream of smoking mud and lava burst through the top of the crater and plunged into the valley of the River Blanche, overwhelming the Guerin sugar works and killing twenty-three workmen and the son of the proprietor. Mr. Guerin's was one of the largest sugar works on the island; its destruction entailed a heavy loss. The mud which overwhelmed it followed the beds of streams towards the north of the island.
The alarm in the city was great, but it was somewhat allayed by the report of an expert commission appointed by the Governor, which decided that the eruption was normal and that the city was in no peril. To further allay the excitement, the Governor, with several scientists, took up his residence in St. Pierre. He could not restrain the people by force, but the moral effect of his presence and the decision of the scientists had a similar disastrous result.