There was, on Pelée, a splitting of the bottom of the long crater gulch. Cauliflower steam volutes charged with dust gushed up the cracks, hard-edged in profile down near the shore, soft and diffuse near the crater. Scalding waters in the gulch bottom carried mud. The mountain was cracking open along radial gulches, and squirting up steam and geysers, but this all concealed itself with sediment. Nobody ever saw the cracks open. The migrating steam clouds charged with gravel were called glow clouds and were believed to “flow” as gas fluids from the crater. An elucidation of all this mystery came many years later, after a thorough study of all reports. The glow clouds, which were at first confused with the gigantic blasts that had destroyed the city, were gradually explained. It became apparent that radial cracks are ancient characters of lava domes, and that lava domes lie under heaps of agglomerate. Pelée and Soufrière are heaps of agglomerate. Kilauea and Mauna Loa are lava domes. Vesuvius is an intermediate type of volcano. I remained in the field from May to July, returned to Mount Pelée, cruised through the northern Caribbee Islands, and went to the bottom of the deep crater of Mount Misery, on St. Kitts. My guides on St. Kitts were two colored men, Johnny Eddy and Samuel Jim. In the crater we found steam and sulfur and a rotten-egg smell, on the bank of a cold crater lake. We descended by seemingly vertical cliffs covered with roots. This was a typical fumarole, or solfatara, one of the unsatisfactory characteristics of craters. We collected specimens and took snapshots, wondered how often such places change suddenly, and knew hydrogen sulfide gas only by the smell. It all jibed with what I was later to discover in Hawaii; that the only way to know a crater is to live with it, and that gases can melt lava. As I look back on the Martinique expedition, I know what a crucial point in my life it was and that it was the human contacts, not field adventures, which inspired me. Gradually I realized that the killing of thousands of persons by subterranean machinery totally unknown to geologists and then unexplainable was worthy of a life work. The story of Rita Stokes made a tremendous impression on me. In Barbados hospital I talked with this young white girl and her colored nurse, Clara King, who had been passengers on the SS _Roraima_ which was at St. Pierre when the city was destroyed. When I saw them they were swathed in bandages. Clara’s burns were severe on knee, arm, and hand. Rita’s were on her head, hands, and arms, and one seriously disfigured ear. Both were somewhat injured for life. Mrs. Stokes, a boy, and a baby girl in the cabin with them had been killed. All saw the adjacent mountain sending up puffs, as the ship lay at anchor off the St. Pierre waterfront on the morning of May 8, but they were reassured by the ship’s officers.