The West Indian Eruptions

Abstract

most peculiar coincidences :-(1) Renewal of eruption of Mont Pelee on morning of May 28 ; peculiar atmospheric disturbance at the Cape, simultaneous with earthquake shock there. (2) Renewal of irregularities in pressure curve on May 29 and 3 I and early morning of June 1, there being renewed volcanic disturbances in West Indies on or about these same dates. The curve for these last two days is remarkable, resembling closely a series of ripples and suggesting "interference" effects. Which was cause and which effect, or is there any correlation whatever? CHARLES STEWART. Meteorological Commission, Cape Town, July 16. A Tripartite Stroke of Lightning. AT about 6.50 p.m. on August 7, after two or three preliminary low thunder rumblings, which by no means prepared us for what was to come, a most tremendous crash of combined thunder, lightning and electric discharge burst right over my residence here. My butler, who was looking in the direction of our front gate, 80 yards to the north of our front door, saw a burst of smoke, mingled with a shower of leaves, rise into the air out of the adjoining shrubbery. My coachman, who was sitting just within the open door of the lodge, close to the front gate, was dazed by a vivid burst of flame at his feet which seemed to leap into the doorway. My neighbour's gardener, looking out of the lodge opposite, saw a nearly horiwntal flash of fire enter the shrubbery close to my front gate. A subsequent examination of the surroundings of the front gate and my coachman's lodge has revealed :-{ 1) A tearing up of the ground close to the massive iron post of the front gate, the splitting of a large flint at its foot, and a litter of ivy leaves on the gravel. (2) The clean cutting in two of an oak post, 35 yards distant to the northeast , from which an iron hand-gate was hanging. (3) The scorching of the outside foliage of a horse-chestnut some I 5 yards still farther off, in a direct line with the other two objects struck. In thirty years' experience of thunderstorms, which are rather frequent here, I have never observed the simultaneous striking of three different points by the electric discharge. A death-like stillness succeeded the crash, the storm appearing to have exhausted itself in a single tremendous explosion. Heavy rain was falling when the crash occurred. I have measured an inch and a half of rainfall within the last three days. Six Mile Bottom, Cambs., August 8. W. H. HALL.