c in this direction as they are in
purely material progress on the lines of western civilization, and
already they are recognized as the most advanced of all people in
their study of seismology and its accompanying phenomena.

CHAPTER XXIX.

KRAKATOA, THE GREATEST OF VOLCANIC EXPLOSIONS.

BY TRUMBULL WHITE.

=The Volcano That Blew Its Own Head Off--The Terrific Crash
Heard Three Thousand Miles--Atmospheric Waves Travel Seven
Times Around the Earth--A Pillar of Dust Seventeen Miles
High--Islands of the Malay Archipelago Blotted Out of
Existence--Native Villages Annihilated--Other Disastrous
Upheavals in the East Indies.=

One of the fairest regions of the world is the Malay Archipelago of
the East Indies. Here nature is prodigal with her gifts to man, and
the cocoa-palm, cinnamon and other trees flourish, and rice, cotton,
the sugar cane and tobacco yield their increase under cultivation. But
beneath these scenes of loveliness, there are terrific energies, for
this region is a focus of intense volcanic action. In the Sunda
strait, between Sumatra and Java, there lies a group of small volcanic
islands, the largest of which is Krakatoa. It forms part of the "basal
wreck" of a large submarine volcano, whose visible edges are also
represented by Velaten and Lang islands.

For two hundred years the igneous forces beneath Krakatoa remained
dormant; but in September, 1880, premonitory shocks of earthquake were
heard in the neighborhood. At length the inhabitants of Batavia and
Bintenzorg were startled on May 20, 1883, by booming sounds which came
from Krakatoa, one hundred miles distant. A mail steamer passing
through the strait, had her compass violently agitated. Next day a
sprinkling of ashes was noticed at some places on each side of the
strait, and toward evening a steam-column rising from Krakatoa
revealed the locality of the disturbance. The commander of the German
war ship Elisabeth, while passing, estimated the dust-column to be
about thirty-six thousand feet, or seven miles high.

Volcanic phenomena being common to that region, no fears were
entertained by the inhabitants in the vicinity; and an excursion party
even started from Batavia to visit the scene of action. They reached
the island on May 27th, and saw that the cone of Perborwatan was
active, and that a column of vapor arose from it to a height of not
less than ten thousand feet, while lumps of pumice were shot up to
a