Identifier: nationalgeograp131902nati (find matches)
Title: The National geographic magazine
Year: 1888 (1880s)
Authors: National Geographic Society (U.S.)
Subjects: Geography
Publisher: Washington : National Geographic Society
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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antityof loose material present, was overloaded.The debris checked its flow, and for atime would hold back the water and actas a dam, the stream bed downstreambecoming dry, and as the pressure ofwater increased, the dam would giveway, and a large body of steaming water,black with material in suspension, wouldrush down the previously dry channel,and with a roar plunge into the sea.The stream made these pulsations at in-tervals, on an average, of perhaps twentyseconds, and between each swift rush ofblack, seething water its channel wasvacant. A similar behavior of thestream near St Pierre, and also of thoseon St Vincent which reach the sea nearGeorgetown, was observed. Such ex-amples of what niay justly be termedoverloaded and pulsating streams arecertainly novel to students of the lifehistories of rivers. From the heights above RichmondHouse the entire western slope of LaSoufriere was in full view during ourvisit, and, like the corresponding sideof Mont Pelee, was without life. Not a ^
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278 The National Geographic Magazine a green sprig was visible, but utter deso-lation reigned. Over all the devastatedregion lay a thick sheet of grey debris,forming a fresh page, on which the rainshad everywhere begun to write theirrecords in the form of rill-cut channels.The newly added material, which so re-cently formed a part of an ascendingcolumn of lava in the throat of La Sou-friere, was being rapidly removed andtaking its place in the sedimentary de-posits of the sea. Every downpour ofrain witnessed the washing from theland of tens of thousands of tons of thisfresh covering. The removal of thenewly fallen material is going on withsuch rapidity that within a few months,or at most a year or two, it will havebeen completely denuded from the hillsand mountain side, but will long remainin the valley. Outside the devastatedarea, where the fall of dust and lapilliwas cold and in depth did not exceed aninch or two, it had been already, at thetime of my visit, washed by rain so thatth

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