AUGUSTE LACOUR (1805-1869)
La Soufrière (1, 467m - 4, 813ft)
France - Guadeloupe
In La Soufrière - Histoire de la Guadeloupe, Basse-terre, 1857
La Soufrière (1, 467m - ) in Guadeloupean Creole "vié madanm la", (literally "the old lady" in French) is a volcano in activity located on the territory of the commune of Saint-Claude in Guadeloupe, in the national park of the same name, in the south of the island of Basse-Terre.
It is the only active volcano on the island, since the last 10,000 years, currently in a state of eruptive rest.The Soufrière is part of a volcanic ensemble comprising several eruptive mouths. Surrounding the main eruptive mouth, other structures formed during eruptions. These are lava domes (Morne Amic, Morne Dongo, Madeleine), volcanic cones (Le Morne Carmichael, La Citerne, L'Echelle, La Grande Découverte, Le Gros Fougas, Le Morne Lenglet) and small craters on the main dome (Amic, gouffres Dupuis et Tarissan, Le cratère Napoléon)
The summit of LA Soufrière is called La Découverte ; it is the highest peak of Guadeloupe and the Lesser Antilles. This lava dome takes the form of a truncated cone 900 meters in diameter at its base. There is no real crater but several eruptive mouths, chasms from which sulphurous vapors escape and deep gashes. The landscape is rocky and chaotic, almost lunar, bristling with pitons.
It is often covered with mists.
Several marked trails run through the volcanic summit.
It is an active volcano of the Pelican type - explosive with fiery clouds -, therefore very dangerous, and of recent formation (100 000 to 200 000 years). Its activity is marked by fumaroles, sulphurous vapors and hot springs on different points of the summit.
The first explosive magmatic eruption of the Soufrière is established around the fifteenth century2,4 or perhaps around 1530 with more or less 30 years of uncertainty5.
The first description of the Soufrière is the fact of the father Jacques Du Tertre in The General History of the Antilles inhabited by the François published in 1667-1671.
In 1797, an important phreatic eruption took place. It can not be ruled out that this eruption was also that of a captive sheet and not of a water table, that is to say put at atmospheric pressure.
An other minor phreatic eruption occurred in 1956.
The last eruption of the Soufrière dates from 1976; it was a phreatic eruption. It led to the evacuation of the southern part of Basse-Terre and the prefecture, 73,600 people over three and a half months. No deaths were deplored.
The artist
Born in Guadeloupe, Auguste Lacour studied law in Paris and obtained a degree in September 1828. He entered the magistracy and was appointed provisional auditor judge, at Basse-Terre, on October 2, 1830. He held, in turn, the functions of public prosecutor, lieutenant of judge at Marie-Galante and Martinique. In 1839 he returned to Basse-Terre as a Royal judge.
Under the Second Empire, he was appointed advisor to the Imperial Court of Guadeloupe.
Between 1855 and 1860, Auguste Lacour took advantage of the leisure hours left to him by his duties as Imperial Court Adviser to write and illustrate with unpublished documents, a "Histoire de Guadeloupe", in four volumes, since the time of its discovery until 1830.
This work was needed, and, in publishing it, Auguste Lacour rendered a true service to his country. Today one always consult with interest those volumes which, with time, have become very rare.
"L'Impremerie du gouvernement" (nowadays "Imprimerie Nationale") in France was responsible for publishing the book in 1857 with some remarquables illustrations including the one above.
Auguste Lacour obtained, in August 1864, the Corix de Chevalier de la Legion d'HOnneur (Knight's Cross of the Legion of Honor).
He died at the age of sixty-four, in Guadeloupe, leaving manuscripts that his heirs refused to publish.
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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau
