The Recent Volcanic Eruption in Dominica

Abstract

I AM indebted to Mr. Thomas Raine, of the Colonial Bank, Barbados, for the following analysis of the volcanic dust which fell in Roseau—the capital of that island—and the surrounding country during the eruption from the crater of the “Boiling Lake” on January 11 in the present year. The analysis was made in the Analytical Laboratory, Barbados, on January 19, by Mr. George Hughes, formerly senior assistant to Dr. A. Voelker, F.R.S., the sample of volcanic dust having been collected during the eruption and forwarded immediately afterwards to Barbados. Mr. Hughes thinks that the dust “has not been exposed directly to the action of fire to any extent, or the percentage of oxide of iron would have been higher and the pyrites less—oxide of iron being one of the products from the combustion of pyrites.”