Volcanoes
On May 8th in 1902, St. Pierre, a city on the island of Martinique that was known as the Paris of the Caribbean, was completely destroyed by the nearby volcano, Mt. Pelée. A dense, swirling cloud of hot gases, volcanic ash, and rocks - known as nuée ardente (French for "burning cloud") - formed when the eruption column of the volcano collapsed downward. Moving at tremendous speed, it incinerated everything in its path. The volcanic flow spilled into the center of the city at about 300 miles per hour. The American Museum of Natural History sent curator Edmund Hovey, a geologist, to study the event. He collected haunting artifacts, many of which are on display in Nature’s Fury: The Science of Natural Disasters. The Museum Library's images of volcanoes, a sampling of which are seen in this Digital Special Collections exhibit, show the destruction following the 1902 volcanic eruption in St. Pierre, volcanic activity from the period of 1943 to 1950 in Paricutin, Mexico, and artwork from the Rare Book Collection depicting Mount Vesuvius in Italy in 1779.
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