JAVA, an island in the Eastern Archipelago, the south point of which is in lat. 47' S., and long. 114° 29' 10" E. It is the chief of the islands of Netherland India, the head ruler being styled the Governor - General of Netherland India, Commander-in-Chief of all the forces of His Majesty the King of Holland to the east of the Cape of Good Hope. Java and Madura are separated by a narrow strait, and considered as one jurisdiction, with an area of 23801 square geographical Dutch miles, with a population in 1880 of 19,797,077, viz. Europeans, 33,703 ; natives, 19,542,835 ; Chinese, 206,914 ; Arabs, 10,523; others, 8092.
Java the less, of Polo and the Arab geographers, was Sumatra,the IabadinsorYavadwipa of Ptolemy. Java, locally Jawa, is the name of the original occu pants of the eastern part of the island, who in latter years have spread all over the island and have given it their name. The Chinese call it Chi-poo. Marco Polo, who described though he did not visit it, calls it Giaua. Java received a Hindu colony from Kalinga, B.C. 75, and vestiges of Hindu mythology, superstitions, and language still remain. When the Chinese traveller visited Java in the 4th century, he found it peopled by Hindus. The Hindu Government continued in Java till it was overthrown in the 14th century by converts to Muhammadanism.
The Netherland India possessions in the Eastern Archipelago, for their civil government, are divided into provinces or prefectures, known under the names of Residencies. The mode adopted by the Dutch, in governing the people, has been to continue the semblance of authority in their own chiefs, while the real power rests with the Dutch officers, termed residents. During the convulsions in Europe in the early years of the 19th century, Java was taken possession of by the British in 1811, but restored in 1816. Near Samarang is the headquarters of the army of Netherland India, strongly fortified.
Java is traversed by two chains of mountains, from 10,000 to 12,000 feet in height, in which there are about 45 volcanoes, many of them in occasional activity ; and it. has explosive mud and brine springs, and a poison valley, in which accumulations of carbonic acid gas kill every form of life which penetrates into it. On the 26th and 27th of August 1883 there occurred the climax of the most tremendous volcanic eruption which, perhaps, the world has ever seen during historic times. In the course of it, Krakatoa Island, 3000 feet high or thereabouts, entirely disappeared. The usual voleinic products, including the finest particles both solid and vaporous, were ejected into the air to a height that no man will ever say, since for many miles round the scene of these devastating forces noon was as black as night, and darkness was over all the land for 36 or 40 hours. The scale on which the work was done
was such that even the noise, the weakest part of it, was heard at a distance of 2000 miles. The shivering of the island produced a wave of water 100 feet high, which destroyed everything over which it swept, and left its mark on tidal registers nearly all over the world. The mere air pulse produced by the last fearful cataclysm was strong enough to pass with its gradually widening circle nearly three times round the globe. • Krakatoa Island was in eruption on the 26th, but it entirely disappeared on the 27th, and a tidal wave 12 to 30 metres . high swept the coast of Mirak as far as Tiyiringen, overwhelming the towns of Anjer, blirak, and Tiyiringen, destroying about 20,000 people. Soengepen volcano split into five ; between the site where Krakatoa had stood and Sibisie Island, sixteen new volcanic craters appeared. A lighthouse in Java and another in Sumatra disappeared. Where once Krakatoa stood, the sea now plays. Ships in the seas sailed through patches of pumice, and Sunda Straits were so much changed as to necessitate resurvey. The craters of the numerous volcanoes for which Java is noted were most of them in active eruption. Madura Island at its east, 500 miles away, also had a share of the terrible effects of this unpre cedented convulsion. Sourabaya, in the Straits of Madura, suffered seriously. The steamship Gouverneur General, belonging to Batavia, was at sea at the height of the eruption, and steamed to Anjer to give the alarm, but found that place destroyed. The ship had a layer of ashes 18 inches thick on her deck. In some places masses of floating pumice-stone seven feet in depth were passed. The volcanic action must have been going on in lat. S. and long. 88° E., at least three weeks prior to the terrible catastrophe in Java. S.S. Siam, from King George's Sound to Colombo, in lat. 5° S., long. E., from 3.30 PM. till dark was steaming through large quant ities of lava floating in broad patches, and trending from north-west to south-east, some pieces larger than a cricket ball. S. and E. is in the middle of the Indian Ocean, about equidistant from the Keeling, Chagos, and Rodrigue Islands. The ancient Hindu temples, the Boro Buddor, the Chandi Silva, and others, were greatly injured.