TERNATE, on the west coast of Gillolo, is a high island, but of small extent, being only about six miles long. Fort Orange is in lat. 0° 49' N., long. 127° 30' E. Several of these islands— Ternate, Tidore, Motir, and Makian— are only cones standing on the same great fissures of the earth. The base of Ternate volcano is beneath the ocean. Its circumference around its shores is six miles, and its height is 5100 feet. Severe and destructive eruptions took place from it iu 1608, 1635, 1653, 1673, after which the next was on the 2Gth February 1838, then on the 25th March 1839, on the 2d February 1840. It, that of 1673, a considerable quantity .of ashes was carried to Amboyna. In that of 2d February 1840, for fifteen hours the solid ground rolled like the sea, but the heaviest ground-wave was at 10 a.m. of tho 15th February, and the people then took to their boats. In this interval, great eruptions of ashes and hot stones fell like hail. Lava poured frotn the crater into the sea. For ten days, clouds of black smoke poured out. About mid night of the 14th, the shocks were more violent, and before 3.30 A.M. every house was levelled. Fissures formed in the earth, out of which hot water rose for a moment, and then the earth closed again, to re-open at another place. Its population in 1865 WAS 9000.
The lower part of the mountain, behind the town, is covered with fruit trees, and hundreds of men, women, and children go daily to the moun tain to bring in the fruit, durian, mango, lansat, and nnangosteen. When Drake visited Ternate
A.D. 1579, the Portuguese had been driven out of the island by the sultan. Ternato with 13atchian constitutes the ancient Moluccas. Milton sang of ' The isles Of Terrtate and Tidore, whence merchants bring Their spicy drugs.'—Par. Lost, Book II.
The people are of three well-marked races, the Temate Malay, the Orang Sirani, and the Dutch. The first are the descendants of the intruding Malay, who drove put the indigenes (who were no doubt the same as those of the ruljacent main land of Gillolo), and established& monarchy; their language is quite unintelligible. The Sirani aro the Christian descendants of Portuguese.
Temate town is at the foot of the mountains.— Bib/tore, p. 306 ; TVallace, pp. 300-311.
TERNSTROMIACEiE of Do Candolle, the Theads, a natural order of planta, chiefly trees or shrubs, forming 28 genera, including 132 species, of which 57 occur in the East Indies, in Java, Ceylon, both the Peninsulas of India, the Khassya mountains, MUM, and Nepal, viz. :-1 Coehlo spermum, 9 Ternstriimia, 1 Anneslea, 1 Adinandra, 9 Eurya, 4 Cleyera, 12 Saurauja, 9 Gordonia, 7 Camellia, 1 Thee, 2 Schirna, ? Pyrenaria, 1 Rein wardtia, Actinidia, Stachyurus. The tea plant, the most remarkable of this order, is a native of Assam.