hich resembled frequent discharges of
the heaviest cannon. It was accompanied by no shock, and, what is very
remarkable, was as loud on the coast as at eighty leagues' distance
inland, and at Caracas, as well as at Calabozo, preparations were made
to put the place in defence against an enemy who seemed to be advancing
with heavy artillery."

It was no enemy that man could deal with. Fortunately, it confined its
assault to deep noises, and desisted from earthquake shocks. Similar
noises were heard in Martinique and Guadeloupe, and here also without
shocks. The internal thunder was the signal of what was taking place on
St. Vincent. With this last warning sound the trouble, which had lasted
so long, was at an end. The earthquakes which for two years had shaken
a sheet of the earth's surface larger than half Europe, were stilled by
the eruption of St. Vincent's volcanic peak.

BARBADOS COVERED WITH ASHES

Northeast of the original crater of the Soufriere a new one was formed
which was a half mile in diameter and five hundred feet deep. The old
crater was in time transformed into a beautiful blue lake, as above
stated, walled in by ragged cliffs to a height of eight hundred feet.

It was looked upon as a remarkable circumstance that although the air
was perfectly calm during the eruption, Barbados, which is ninety-five
miles to the windward, was covered inches deep with ashes. The
inhabitants there and on other neighboring islands were terrified by the
darkness, which continued for four hours and a half. Troops were called
under arms, the supposition from the continued noise being that hostile
fleets were in an engagement.

The movement of the ashes to windward, as just stated, was viewed as a
remarkable phenomenon, and is cited by Elise Reclus, in "The Ocean," to
show the force of different aerial currents; "On the first day of May,
1812, when the northeast trade-wind was in all its force, enormous
quantities of ashes obscured the atmosphere above the Island of
Barbados, and covered the ground with a thick layer. One would have
supposed that they came from the volcanoes of the Azores, which were
to the northeast; nevertheless they were cast up by the crater in St.
Vincent, one hundred miles to the west. It is therefore certain that the
debris had been hurled, by the force of the eruption, above the moving
sheet of the trade-winds into an aerial river proceeding in a contrary
direction." For this it must have been