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CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.
CONTENTS
THE STORY OF A VAST EXPLOSION.
BY MEAD AND STREAM.
CIGARS.
ONE WOMAN’S HISTORY.
AMERICAN NEWSPAPERS ON THEMSELVES.
THE MISSING CLUE.
A SOLITARY ISLAND.
FORESTRY AND FARMING.
A LOVE-THOUGHT.
No. 45.—Vol. I.
Price 1½d.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1884.
THE STORY OF A VAST EXPLOSION.
The greatest physical convulsion of recent timesoccurred on the morning of the 27th of Augustlast year, the scene of the catastrophe being asmall island in the Sunda Straits, which separateSumatra and Java. It is a region which there ismuch reason to regard as one of the intensest fociof volcanic activity on the earth’s surface. Themain facts connected with this event, althoughslow in coming to hand, are now fairly withinthe records of science. Krakatoa, the volcanicisland which a year or two ago was seven mileslong by five broad, is about thirty miles fromthe Java coast. When surveyed in 1868-69, theisland was found to be clothed from base tosummit with a luxuriant growth of forest andtropical vegetation, but uninhabited. A fewweeks prior to the eruption, the volcano, whichhad been dormant for two centuries, gavesigns of an awakening. On the 20th of Mayseveral shocks, accompanied by loud explosionsand hollow reverberations, startled the inhabitantsof the towns of Batavia and Buitenzorg,about ninety miles distant.[1] These disturbancescontinued for the next three months with moreor less activity. On the 11th and 18th of Augustthe energy of the volcano increased, and therewere symptoms of a crisis. On the 26th andthe night following, several eruptions took place,until the climax was reached on the followingmorning. The submarine base of the mountainthen seems, according to all available evidence,to have literally ‘caved in.’ This was apparentlyaccompanied by an influx of the sea into themolten interior, the instantaneous developmentof superheated steam, and then an explosionwhich, for its colossal energy, is unparalleled inthe annals of volcanic outbreaks.
The enormous power of this eruption can onlybe adequately understood by its effects; thesewe now briefly summarise. The explosion itself,according to Dr Verbeek, one of the DutchCommission appointed to invest