THE
ERUPTION
OF
PELÉE
39
was made aware of this condition. On the other hand, an uninterrupted crepitation was noted at the Observatory of Fort-de-France. Whatever m a y be the precise n a t u r e of these extraordinary displays—and only after careful spectroscopic analysis of similar displays will it be possible to arrive a t a positive conclusion as to their character—it is certain t h a t something similar has been observed in the eruptions of some (perhaps many) other volcanoes. The balls of electric fire t h a t in different eruptions have been described in connection with the ascending steam-column of Vesuvius are almost certainly a p a r t of the same phenomenon, although sometimes they are referred to as actually falling incandescent boulders, the same as in the Soufrière eruption of 1812. Sekiya and Kikuchi, in their report upon the Bandai-San eruption (1888), speak of innumerable sparks of fire being seen through the densely falling ashes, with characters quite different from lightning; b u t these investigators refer to t h e m as being produced " b y stones and rocks striking against each other in the air or falling on a rocky bed. . . . We could discover nothing to lead us to believe t h a t there had been combustion or any other h e a t manifestations."* I t is singular t h a t a t the time of our own observations all of the phenomena were overhead, nothing appearing in the region immediately about or directly over the crateral opening. Seemingly the counterpart of w h a t we observed on the night of Aug. 30 was noted during the eruption of Santorin in 1650, for Pègues, in his description of this event, says: . . . " l'air paraissait tout en feu . . . Vous eussiez vu comme des serpents voler, des épées briller, des lances traverser le ciel, des torches ardentes voltiger de toutes parts" ( " H i s t o i r e et Phénomènes du Volcan et des Iles Volcaniques de Santorin," 1842, p. 152). Nothing exactly of the nature here referred to seems to have been remarked as an accompaniment of the K r a k a t a o eruption (Captain Wooldridge speaks of serpent-like flashes of forked lightning), b u t the report of Pond and Percy Smith on the great eruption of Tarawera, in New Zealand, in June, 1886, leaves no doubt t h a t the phenomena witnessed there were identical with those of Pelée. " T h e electrical phenomena accompanying the outburst," we are told, " m u s t have been on the grandest scale. The vast cloud appears to have been highly charged with lightning, which was flashing and darting across and through it, sometimes shooting upward in long, curved streamers, at others following horizontal or downward directions, the flashes frequently ending in balls of fire, which as often burst into thousands of rocket-like stars." † I t should be noted t h a t some of the electric display of Tarawera was " accompanied by a rustling or crackling noise . . . probably the same [noise] as is heard sometimes at great auroral displays." I t would seem t h a t Flett and Anderson observed a minor exhibition of this form of electric discharge in the low-rolling black cloud of July 9. *Journal College of Science, T o k y o , I I I , 1890, p. 129. †Transactions New Zealand Institute, 1886 (1887), p. 352.