KRAKATOA ISLAND. 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, per haps, the world has ever seen during historic times. In the course of it, Krakatoa Island, 3000 feet high or thereabouts, entirely disappeared. The usual volcanic products, including the finest particles both solid and vapours, 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 the noise was heard at a distance of 2000 miles. The shivering of the island pro duced 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, Mirak, and Tiyiringen, destroying about 20,000 people. Soeugepen volcano split into five ; between the site where Krakatoa had Mood and Sibisio 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. 5° 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. 88° E., from 3.30 P.31. till dark was steaming through large quantities of lava floating in broad patches, and trending from north-west to south -east ; some pieces larger than a cricket ball. 5° S. and 80 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 Siwa, and others, were greatly injured.