The Last Volcano Page 5

  They were a group “of huge recumbent bears.” The one nearest to him was lying with its nose between its paws, looking exactly like a huge dog asleep. Jaggar approached cautiously. He threw a pebble and struck it on its side. The only response was a belch of noxious gas that almost overwhelmed him.

  He examined the carcass and decided it was a young grizzly. Drops of thick, dark-red blood stained its nostrils and the ground beneath. Five other bears lay nearby in various stages of decomposition. One grizzly had died so recently that its tracks were still visible and could have been followed back in the direction it had come.

  The deaths had been caused by carbon dioxide, a gas common in volcanic regions and emitted from the ground. Heavier than air, the invisible and odorless gas had accumulated in the lower reaches of the ravine. Each bear had succumbed to the gas.

  Fortunately, a strong wind was blowing and bringing fresh air into the ravine the day Jaggar visited. Even so, he lit a few matches and threw them into small hollows and cavities. Each one burned brightly, indicating the air was safe to breath. The smell of sulfur, common in volcanic areas, was plentiful, Jaggar feeling a burning sensation deep in his lungs long after he left the area. It was a small discomfort, so he thought, for such a rare adventure.

  Jaggar returned to the American West every summer for the next few years. At first, his fieldwork was focused on the volcanic rocks near the Black Hills of South Dakota and around Devil’s Tower in Wyoming. Later, with Palache, he mapped the geology of the Bradshaw Mountains in Arizona, showing that the area had once been buried by lava flows, then eroded and, finally, uplifted.

  In 1899, after his summer work ended and just before he returned to Harvard, he wrote a letter to his father. “I have received your two letters, and send you herewith the $100 I promised.” He continued. “I hope you will come on at Xmas, for there are several things to be talked over, and some of them I will tell you about now.” The first was the possibility that he would be leaving the United States.

  The Royal British University in Melbourne, Australia, was looking for someone to teach geology. And Jaggar was one of three finalists. He wrote to his father that he was anxious for the job, seeing it was “a great opportunity for travel and for widening my experiences.” Unlike Germany, Australia would be an adventure, more in line with the American West.

  And Jaggar had other news. “If I should get the Australian position I should probably marry. The woman in question is entirely new to you, and so new to me that I don’t quite know where I am at.” She was Charlotte Gage, trained in Europe as an opera singer and “a descendent of the old tory governor.” Jaggar told his father that Miss Gage “will have seventy or eighty thousand dollars of her own when her mother dies.” And that she was divorced.

  “Now on general principles,” he continued, in writing to his father, “the idea of marrying a divorcee is one that I don’t like any better than you do, but unfortunately, general principles do not stand by us when we get into the real life of the exception.” Then, to reassure his father, “She is womanly and pure, not a grain of stage-struck fly-away about her.” She was “a brilliant social figure while thoroughly accomplished in housewifely pursuits.” He ended the letter by admitting “I have flirted so much that I don’t possess the power yet of taking myself seriously.”

  In the end, he was not hired for the job in Australia nor did he marry Miss Gage. Instead, years later, when he recalled the events of 1899, he would remember two other events that “affected the rest of my life.”

  The first happened in September when a swarm of intense earthquakes were felt around Yakutat Bay in Alaska. Reading newspaper accounts of the faraway activity, Jaggar was impressed by eight prospectors who, with no scientific training, had devised a simple way to count earthquakes.

  The prospectors had hung two hunting knives from strings, suspended so that the points almost touched. Whenever the ground shook, even slightly, the knives jiggled. With this crude device and a pocket watch, during the next week, the prospectors timed fifty-two earthquakes. Then, at 9:30 A.M. on September 10, their makeshift sensor, as well as their campsite, was destroyed when, as one prospector remembered, “There came another severe shock that was enough to throw a man off his feet.”

  The eight men were sitting inside a large tent when the strong earthquake struck. As soon as the shaking began, those who could get to their feet raced out, one man momentarily delayed when he was thrown onto the camp stove. Two others kept in a corner, holding tightly to a tent pole. The shaking lasted almost three minutes, one man remembering the ground “cutting some of the queerest capers imaginable.”

  The ground shaking was so strong that it caused a wall of water to rise in Yakutat Bay and run up onto shore. It washed over the eight prospectors, sweeping them over a forty-foot-high hill and landing them atop the crest of ridge. Gaining their feet, they ran along the crest, as one prospector remembered it, “the [water] boiling and seething at [their] feet.” All eight survived. It took them four days to reach the town of Yakutat, which, though the wall of water had not reached the town, it was deserted. After some searching, the prospectors found the citizens of Yakutat camped on a nearby hill that, to this day, is still known as “Shivering Hill.”

  According to Jaggar, “The Yakutat earthquake snapped on an astonished world, though most of the world didn’t known it.” Actually, the earthquake “snapped” mostly on him, awakening him to how much there was to learn about the earth and its forces. And, as he knew, the Yakutat earthquake and others like it were happening and causing havoc and going unstudied and, in some cases, unreported elsewhere in the world.

  The second event of 1899 to affect the remainder of Jaggar’s life was a request he received from Charles Doolittle Walcott, Director of the United States Geological Survey. The Hawaiian Islands had been annexed the previous year and, knowing of Jaggar’s interest in studying volcanic rocks, Walcott asked the Harvard instructor to put together a plan for a geological survey of the islands.

  Jaggar thought back to his field experiences with Hague and listed the requirements. He would need two field assistants, two packers, a cook, a half-dozen mules, a reliable set of surveying equipment and enough money to support the work for three years, the length of time he thought was needed to survey all of the islands. Jaggar submitted the plan to Walcott in January 1901, then waited for a response.

  During the next year, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He continued to teach at Harvard, receiving an outstanding teaching award. And he worked the next summer in Arizona with Palache. His future seemed secure. And, yet, recalling this time, he would write, “I dislike geology.” What had gone wrong for this promising Harvard graduate?

  His dislike of geology grew from “its concentration on mining interests,” which meant one had to work in “secrecy and its devotion to profits.” It was completely opposed to the ideal of the Social Gospel.

  In January 1902, Jaggar wrote to Walcott, reminding him that a year had passed since he had submitted a plan for a geologic survey of the Hawaiian Islands. In the letter, Jaggar volunteered that “if I were to go to Hawaii, I should resign from the University.” Walcott responded. “Your plan of organization for geologic work in the Hawaiian Islands is duly received and considered. It is placed on file for future consideration whenever Congress shall take such action in regard to an appropriation for the proposed work.”

  The response was a disappointment. An opportunity had slipped away. And no others were in sight.

  But, four months later, a natural disaster would stun the world and change his life. It was all the more remarkable because no one knew that such a disaster was even possible.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE CARIBBEAN

  The dozen islands of the Lesser Antilles, among the smallest islands of the Caribbean, lie along a great arc that begins east of Puerto Rico, swings southward into the Atlantic, then curls back, ending at Grenada, just north of South America. Lying along thi
s arc are the islands of St. Kitts, Guadeloupe, Dominica, Martinique, St. Lucia and St. Vincent. Each name invokes an image of an island lush with tropical vegetation and surrounded by a serene blue sea. But looks are deceiving because each island is a potential Vesuvius in eruption because each island was born of volcanic fire.

  The two most active volcanoes of the Lesser Antilles share the French name Soufrière, which means “sulfur fire.” One of the Soufrière volcanoes forms the western half of Guadeloupe and the other most of the island of St. Vincent. Midway between them is the island of Martinique, a French colony, fifty miles in its longest extent and no more than twenty miles wide. And it has its own volcano, Mount Pelée.

  Mount Pelée dominates the northern half of Martinique. Its summit rises higher than four thousand feet and its steep slopes are drained by a dozen rivers that have sulfated the volcano into a series of pie-shaped segments that diverge from the summit and run to the coast. Most of the coastline is lined by high sea cliffs, giving the appearance that the edge of the volcano was carved by a giant trimming knife. In only one place is there a narrow coastal plain. It is on this plain that the people of Martinique built their largest and most vibrant city—St. Pierre.

  Known to 19th-century travelers as “the Pearl of the Caribbean,” St. Pierre was an essential stop for anyone who sailed the Caribbean in that era. The pattern of its streets and much of its architecture was reminiscent of an old French town, though the people of St. Pierre enjoyed a much better climate. Buildings were made of stone and consisted of only one or two stories. Black iron-wrought railings outlined balconies. Large windows allowed sea breezes to blow through. In case of a hurricane, strong wooden shutters could be closed, protecting the inhabitants.

  The city had two main streets that ran parallel to the shoreline. Each one had a streetcar line that was run by female conductors. There was an electrical power plant and a telephone system that connected St. Pierre to every village on the island. The city had two banks.

  Four newspapers were printed. An opera house offered stage productions from Paris. But there was a dark side.

  Alleys lined with rum shops and brothels ran from the main streets down to the waterfront. Local law prohibited such establishments from having outside signs, and so patrons had to step inside to see what was offered. And it was of the vilest kind. Rooms were dank and dark. Robberies were common. Some women serviced more than a dozen customers a night. It was such wickedness and permissiveness that caused some to say that St. Pierre would be struck soon by a vengeful God. And that prophecy seemed that it might come true when, in early 1902, the people of St. Pierre first reported the smell of hellish sulfur wafting down from the summit of their volcano.

  No one would ever remember exactly when the disagreeable odor was first detected, except that it had been during a morning and that, by afternoon, a sea breeze had carried it away.

  Then, sometime in late March—again, no one could remember when—an unusual cloud, light gray in color, shot up from the summit of Mount Pelée. For a moment afterwards, the ground shook. Those who were long-time inhabitants said it was nothing to bother about. A similar thing had happened more than fifty years earlier when, for about a month, the volcano had sent up a series of small puffs of gray ash that settled quietly over the city. Yes, the old-timers remembered, the ground had shaken occasionally then, too. What was happening now, in 1902, was just a replay of the earlier event. And there was no reason for concern. The puffs and shakings were entertainment and should be enjoyed. But not everyone was convinced. Some people quietly hustled off to church to confess their sins.

  After a day or so of puffs of ash and brief earthquakes, weeks of calm followed. That was broken on April 23 when three quick earthquakes rocked the island. The wife of the American consul on Martinique, Clara Prentiss, who lived in St. Pierre, wrote to her sister about the events.

  At first, Prentiss thought someone was at the door, but, when a second, then a third shaking was felt, the last one strong enough to rattle dishes, she ran to the window to see what was happening. A column of ash, darker than the earlier ones, was rising high above the volcano. Minutes later, a rain of fine ash fell over the city. That afternoon, to calm any unease the people of St. Pierre might feel about the volcano, the island’s colonial governor, Louis Mouttet, who had lived on Martinique for nine months, issued a statement saying there was no danger from the volcano because, if Mount Pelée did erupt, the city of St. Pierre and its inhabitants would be protected by a high ridge that stood between the city and the volcano, a ridge that had protected St. Pierre many times from the high winds of hurricanes. In the same way, the statement concluded, St. Pierre would be safe from the volcano.

  After a day of quiet, Mount Pelée exploded again. This time it was heard across the entire island. At first, most people thought it was just the firing of distant cannon until they saw another plume of ash, darker than any so far, rising from the volcano. The eruption continued for several hours. And, again, powdery material fell over St. Pierre, enough to silence the familiar clicks of carriage wheels rolling over the city streets.

  On May 3, Clara Prentiss wrote another letter to her sister, keeping her informed of what was happening in St. Pierre. She and her husband were worried. They had made plans to leave the city quickly if the volcano seemed ready to burst. A schooner, the R.J. Morse, owned by a wealthy American, had arrived and, if the situation seemed serious, Clara and her husband would grab their most valuable possessions and race to the waterfront and sail away.

  The next night the volcano exploded again, this time more violent than before. It rained heavily that night, the rain mixing with volcanic ash, forming muddy slurries that raced down streams and rivers. The Blanche River, three miles north of St. Pierre, usually clear, was a raging flood of mud that buried a sugar mill, killing dozens of workers. When the flood reached the sea, it sent out a huge wave that swept around the island, swamping low wooden piers at St. Pierre, carrying away some cargo. The sea quickly calmed, but not the people.

  The fatalities at the sugar mill and the destruction by the sea wave raised so much concern that Governor Mouttet issued a second statement. “There is nothing in the activity of Mount Pelee that warrants departure from St. Pierre.” He added, “The relative positions of craters and valleys opening toward the sea supports the conclusion that the safety of St. Pierre is assured.” Then, as a demonstration of his faith in his own pronouncement, Mouttet and his family and several key government officials, who all resided in Fort-de-France on the south side of the island, moved to St. Pierre where they would stay, Mouttet said, until an election was completed five days later.

  On May 7, three days after his second statement, Mouttet issued another one. This time he announced that the volcano of Soufrière on the island of St. Vincent, a hundred miles to the south, had exploded, killing thousands of people. At first, the people of St. Pierre were worried by the news, then became quietly relieved when a rumor spread that the volcano on St. Vincent and their volcano were connected. The explosion of Soufrière, it was reasoned, had released pressure beneath Mount Pelée, making their volcano less threatening.

  That night, another storm hit the island. By morning, May 8, the weather was clear. Just before daybreak, the sugar-carrier Roraima from New York entered the harbor with several passengers on board. An hour later, the British steamer Roddam arrived. Its captain, Edward Freeman, anchored his ship at the south end of St. Pierre. Thirty minutes later, about 7:30 A.M., while waiting for the ship’s agent to arrive, Freeman watched as a small boat filled with tourists from Fort-de-France arrived at St. Pierre. They planned to spend the day in the city, hoping to see some volcanic activity.

  That morning, the telephone operator at Fort-de-France, twenty miles south of St. Pierre, was making his usual morning calls, checking the wires and chatting with friends. At a few minutes before 8 A.M., he was talking to someone in St. Pierre who said that a dark fog was descending on the city. The person in St. Pierre said h
e was going to take a look and would call back.

  Minutes passed and the operator in Fort-de-France heard clattering on the roof. He went outside and saw that a hail of stones was falling from the sky. He hurried back and called his friend in St. Pierre. The friend answered, barely able to speak. The operator shouted into the headset, and then listened for a response. He heard a cry of intense pain followed, as he told the story, “by an incredible sound, like that of an enormous block of iron falling on a metal roof.”

  The operator hung on. Seconds passed. He pressed the headset against his ear hoping to hear more when a surge of electricity, racing through the wires, sent a violent shock through his head.

  Thursday, May 8, 1902, was a typical dreary mid-spring day in Massachusetts. The sky had been overcast for a week. That morning a cold rain fell in Cambridge and in Boston.

  For Jaggar, the day had been an ordinary one. During the afternoon, he taught two classes, “Experimental Geology” and “Advanced Geological Field Work.” Some time during the day, he had probably found time to add to an evening public lecture he was planning to give the following week, a lecture entitled “Volcanoes and You.” On Saturday, he was planning to lead a group of Harvard geology students on a hike through the nearby Waschsett Mountains to show them evidence of recent glaciation. During a meeting held earlier that week, he had told everyone who planned to join him on the hike that they would be leaving the Harvard campus promptly at 8 A.M. and would be returning after dark. The trip would be made regardless of the weather.

  That evening, May 8, as he was returning home, news of the eruption of Mount Pelée and the destruction of St. Pierre was racing through telegraph wires. He learned of the eruption the next day.

  The headline in The Boston Globe read: “Killed 25,000! City of St. Pierre Wiped Out. Mount Pelee in Eruption.” Beneath it was a short article, barely 200 words that offered few details. With so little information, it is not surprising that news of the eruption made no immediate impression on Jaggar.