The volcanoes of Java are in two lines,—one, commencing near Cape St. Nicholas, its N.W. extremity, passes diagonally across the island to its S.E. headland on the Strait of Bali. The other line runs parallel, and extends from Cheribon on the S. coast to the Strait of Sunda. The volcanoes are in two separate fissures in the earth's crust, and the volcanoes in it are cones of elevation, each distinct and separate ; their number being 38, and some of them of immense size. They throw out volcanic ashes, sand, and scoriae, and sometimes trachytic lava. 1Vhite clouds of sulphuric acid gas continually wreath their peaks, and is destructive to life. Large quantities of sulphur are dug out. A severe earthquake was experienced - in Batavia, and over an extensive region in Java, on the 16th of November 1847. In the Courant of the 27th October 1847, it was mentioned that a shower of ashes had fallen at Buitenzorg on the night of the 17th, which came from the Guntur mountain, in the district of Litiabangan, Residency of Preangar. On Sunday the 17th October, at 11 o'clock P.M., the earth quake shocks, following each other in quick succession, were felt at Tijandjur, the first of which was very strong, and lasted for fully ten seconds. The shower of ashes began to fall the same night, and on the following morning had already clothed the earth, grass, trees, and build ings with a brown covering. The fall of ashes and sand lasted the whole day, and made it very inconvenient to be in the open air. The eyes of travellers suffered. The earthquakes had not wholly stopped at Tijandjur on the 29th October. The mountain had, however, fortunately begun to be at rest, and no damage had been caused by the eruption. The shower of ashes had reached as far as the frontiers of the Residency of Bantam, a distance of more than 80 miles to the west. Toigger mountains mean the wide or spacious mountains. There is hero an old volcano with its trachyte crater 7500 feet above the sea, in diameter 31 and 4. miles. It is the largest crater in Java, and one of the largest in the world. Its bottom is a level floor of sand, which in some places is drifted by the wind like the sea, and is called by the Malaya the Lint Pasar or Sandy Sea. Four cones of elevation rise from this sand floor, the smallest of which, called Bronco, in 1866, was active, throwing out ashes. It rises like Monte Somma in the crater of Vesuvius. But trachytc, obsidian, and pumice have been thrown out in succession.
Papandayang volcano, in 1772, in the south of Java, in lat. 10° 8' S., in a single night threw out scoria: and ashes which Dr. Jonghuhn thinks made a layer of 50 feet thick for seven miles around. In Dr. Borsfield's account of it, drawn up from the native testimony, it is stated that an extent of ground of the mountain and its environs, 15 miles long and full 6 broad, was by this commotion swallowed up within the bowels of the earth ; but such sinking, according to Mr. Bikmore (p: 75), does not seem to have occurred.
Mount Galung-gong, a few miles N.E. of Papan dayang, is also a Java volcano. On the 8th July 1822, at noon, not a cloud was seen in the sky, when suddenly at half-past one a frightful thunder ing was heard in the earth, and from the top of this old volcano a dark, dense mass was seen rising higher and higher into the air, and spreading itself out over the clear sky with such an appalling rapidity, that in a few moments the whole land scape was shrouded in the darkness of night.
Through this darkness flashes of lightning gleamed in a hundred lines, and many natives were struck clown by falling stones. Then a deluge of hot water and flowing mud rose over the rim of the old crater and poured down the mountain sides, sweeping away trees and beasts and human beings. At the same moment, stones and ashes and sand were projected high into the air, and as they fell destroyed nearly everything within a radius of more than 20 miles. A few villages on the lower declivities of the mountains escaped, from being built on eminences, as they were above the streams of hot water and mud, and the stones thrown out fell beyond them, destroying villages at a greater distance. By 4 rm. the extreme violence of the eruption had passed, by sunset the sky was again clear, and the sun shining on a scene of desolation. A second eruption occurred five days afterwards, and by that time more than 20,000 persons had perished.
The Javan group of languages embraces Sundae, .Maduran (with its dialect Bawian), and Bali. According to Mr. Logan, Javan has a much broader, more forcible aspirate and primitive phonology than Malay. Up to the middle of the 15th century, the people of Java, from Cheribon, in long. 109° to the west, spoke the Sundanese tongue. But in 1811 nine-tenths of all the popu lation of Java spoke Javanese, and the Sundanese was already confined to the mountainous parts of the south and west, and to a small colony near Bantam. The Javanese alphabet•like all others in the Archi pelago, is written from left to right, each letter is distinct and unconnected, and the writing in per pendicular and not slanting. It is the character used for the Javanese proper, the Sunda, the Bali, and it is believed the Lombok, and including Palembang in Sumatra, it is current among twelve millions of population. But in prior times other characters to the extent of twelve in number have prevailed in Java.
In the eastern and central parts there may be said to be three Javanese languages,—the popular, the polite (which is a kind of factitious dialect of it), and an ancient tongue, found only in old books and ancient inscriptions. The modern and popular language, as well as the polite dialect, is written in a peculiar character, of which the substantive letters amount to twenty. Sundan ese is spoken over about one - third of the island, extending from Cheribon across the island down to its western extremity. This tract is more mountainous than that inhabited by the Javanese, and tho people somewhat less advanced in. civilisation, but possessing the same amiable and docile character as that nation.
The industrious, peaceful, and numerous peopla who speak the Madurese language, with its dialect the Sumanap, occupy the island of Madura, divided from Java by a strait, and form in some districts the bulk of the population on the opposite shores of Java, to which, depopulated by long wars for the past two hundred years, they have been emigrating.