ch side of it, earthquakes are of continual
recurrence, slight shocks being felt at intervals of every few weeks or
months, while more severe ones, shaking down whole villages, and doing
more or less injury to life and property, are sure to happen, in one
part or another of this district, almost every year. On many of the
islands the years of the great earthquakes form the chronological
epochs of the native inhabitants, by the aid of which the ages of their
children are remembered, and the dates of many important events are
determined.

I can only briefly allude to the many fearful eruptions that have taken
place in this region. In the amount of injury to life and property, and
in the magnitude of their effects, they have not been surpassed by
any upon record. Forty villages were destroyed by the eruption of
Papandayang in Java, in 1772, when the whole mountain was blown up by
repeated explosions, and a large lake left in its place. By the great
eruption of Tomboro in Sumbawa, in 1815, 12,000 people were destroyed,
and the ashes darkened the air and fell thickly upon the earth and sea
for 300 miles around. Even quite recently, since I left the country, a
mountain which had been quiescent for more than 200 years suddenly burst
into activity. The island of Makian, one of the Moluccas, was rent
open in 1646 by a violent eruption which left a huge chasm on one side,
extending into the heart of the mountain. It was, when I last visited
it in 1860, clothed with vegetation to the summit, and contained twelve
populous Malay villages. On the 29th of December, 1862, after 215 years
of perfect inaction, it again suddenly burst forth, blowing up and
completely altering the appearance of the mountain, destroying the
greater part of the inhabitants, and sending forth such volumes of ashes
as to darken the air at Ternate, forty miles off, and to almost entirely
destroy the growing crops on that and the surrounding islands.

The island of Java contains more volcanoes, active and extinct, than
any other known district of equal extent. They are about forty-five in
number, and many of them exhibit most beautiful examples of the volcanic
cone on a large scale, single or double, with entire or truncated
summits, and averaging 10,000 feet high.

It is now well ascertained that almost all volcanoes have been slowly
built up by the accumulation of matter--mud, ashes, and lava--ejected
by themselves. The openings or craters, however, frequent