Our boats had gone
overboard with the masts and funnel.
PREPARED TO TRUST TO LUCK
"We made that raft for something over thirty that were alive. We put
provisions on for two days and rigged up a make-shift mast and sail,
for we intended to go to sea. We were only three boats' length from the
shore, but the shore was hell itself. We intended to put straight out
and trust to luck that the Korona, that was about due at St. Pierre,
would pick us up. But we did not have to risk the raft, for about 3
o'clock in the afternoon, when we were almost ready to put the raft
overboard, the Suchet came along and took us all off. We thought for a
minute just after we were wrecked that we were to get help from a ship
that passed us. We burned blue lights, but she kept on. We learned
afterward that she was the Roddam."
Soundings made off Martinique after the explosion showed that earthquake
effects of much importance had taken place under the sea bottom, which
had been lifted in some places and had sunk in others. While deep
crevices had been formed on the land, a still greater effect had
seemingly been produced beneath the water. During the explosion the sea
withdrew several hundred feet from its shore line, and then came back
steaming with fury; this indicating a lift and fall of the ocean bed off
the isle. Soundings made subsequently near the island found in one place
a depth of 4,000 feet where before it had been only 600 feet deep. The
French Cable Company, which was at work trying to repair the cables
broken by the eruption, found the bottom of the Caribbean Sea so changed
as to render the old charts useless.
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