"Thus, when Mermoz first crossed the South Atlantic in a hydroplane, as day was dying he ran foul of the Black Hole region, off Africa. Straight ahead of him were the tails of tornadoes rising minute by minute gradually higher, rising as a wall is built; and then the night came down upon these preliminaries and swallowed them up; and when, an hour later, he slipped under the clouds, he came out into a fantastic kingdom.

Great black waterspouts had reared themselves seemingly in the immobility of temple pillars. Swollen at their tops, they were supporting the squat and lowering arch of the tempest, but through the rifts in the arch there fell slabs of light and the full moon sent her radiant beams between the pillars down upon the frozen tiles of the sea. Through these uninhabited ruins Mermoz made his way, gliding slantwise from one channel of light to the next, circling round those giant pillars in which there must have rumbled the upsurge of the sea, flying for four hours through these corridors of moonlight toward the exit from the temple. And this spectacle was so overwhelming that only after he had got through the Black Hole did Mermoz awaken to the fact that he had not been afraid."

-Wind, Sand and Stars, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Montagne Pelée, 1902

"Thursday 8 May was Ascension Day. The morning was calm, although a cloud of ash covered the sky over St Pierre. The governor, his wife and a small party of officials set off by boat for Le Prêcheur. They were never seen again.

... At 8:02 there was a blinding flash, and then a sound like the roar of thousands of cannons. A directed, low-angle blast, followed by a nuée ardente, left the summit by the little notch on the southwestern rim of the caldera, swept down the Rivière Blanche valley, rushed southwards beyond it at speeds estimated between 200km and 500km per hour, and at temperatures ranging between 200ºC and 450ºC, devastated an area of 58 [square] km, and overwhelmed St Pierre in less than two minutes. The blast and then the incandescent cloud of swirling ash, steam, and an emulsion of lava blocks, boulders, pumice, toxic gases, trees and masonry hurtled down the streets, into the houses, into the cathedral crowded with worshippers, and killed more than 28000 people in the space of two fatal breaths."

-Volcanoes, Alwyn Scarth