Name/Title
StereographEntry/Object ID
2023.055.3.0239Description
A black and white stereograph. Image is of smoke rising off of the ground. Above the image (T22(unreadable) (Star)" is printed, below the image "14416T Soufriere's Mammoth Crater - Volcanic Terrors of St. Vincent, B. W. W." is printed, to the left of the image "Keystone View Company COPYRIGHTED Manufacturers MADE IN U.S.A. Publishers" is printed, to the right of the image "Meadville, Pa., New York, N. Y., Chicago, Ill., London, England." is printed. On the reverse the following is printed:
14416
SOUFRIERE'S MAMMOTH CRATER, ST. VINCENT, B. W. I.
For two years previous to 1812 the inhabitants of the West Indies and the coast of South American near by had been terrified by earthquake shocks. Suddenly March 26, 1812, the city of Caracas, Venezuela, was overwhelmed and 10,000 people were bureid in the ruins. A little later there was a terrible explosion in La Soufriere on the isle of St. Vincent which tore out a part of the island and sent clouds of dust and ashes over three miles high and darkend the sky completley for three days. The island of Barbados, 100 miles to the eastward, was covered inches deep with the fine balck dust thrown out, showing that the dust was thrown up into the return currents above the steady rradewinds which here blow constantly towrds the west.
On May 7, 1902, another terrible explosion took place here the day before the destruction of St. Pierre on the French island of Martinique, half way between here and Guadeloupe. It was no fault of this terrible mountain that its victims were but 4,000 while Mont Pelee destroyed 30,000, for Soufriere devasted three tiems the area that was stricken at St. Pierre next day. Had they been within reach, a million would have perished. In six minutes the streams of hot muc and ashes flowed six miles, destorying animal and vegetable life in every direction.
St. Vincent is one of a chian of 500 islands which stretches from Florida to the mouths of the Orinoco River in South America, a distance of 800 miles. Most of these islands are only the tops of sumarine mountains and volcanoes. The Caribbean Sea, of which these island form the outer boundary, is sometiems referred to as the American mediterranean.
Copyright by The Keystone View CompanyCollection
Photograph Collection