with
the edges of all shades of yellow, the whole of a murky tinge, with
fierce flashes of lightning." Two other masters of vessels, at about
the same distance from the volcano, report seeing the mastheads and
yardarms of their ships aglow with electric fire. Such effects seem to
be easily explicable. When we consider how enormous must be the
friction going on in the hot air, through the clash against each other
of myriads of particles of volcanic dust, during ejection and in their
descent, it is evident that such friction is adequate to produce a
widespread electrical disturbance in the surrounding atmosphere. The
rush of steam through craters or other fissures would also contribute
to these disturbances.

From these causes the compasses of passing ships were much disturbed.
And yet the fall of magnetic oxide of iron (magnetite), a constituent
of volcanic ash, possibly had some share in creating these
perturbations. On the telephone line from Ishore, which included a
submarine cable about a mile long, reports like pistol shots were
heard. At Singapore, five hundred miles from Krakatoa, it was noted at
the Oriental Telephone Company's station that, on putting the receiver
to the ear, a roar like that of a waterfall was heard. So great was
the mass of vapor and dust in the air, that profound darkness, which
lasted many hours, extended even to one hundred and fifty miles from
the focus of the eruption. There is the record, among others, that it
was "pitch dark" at Anjer at two o'clock in the afternoon of the 26th.

So great, too, was the ejective force that the fine volcanic dust was
blown up to a height of fifty thousand feet, or over nine miles, into
space. Another estimate gives the enormous altitude of seventeen miles
to which the dust had been blown. The volcanic ash, which fell upon
the neighboring islands within a circle of nine and one half miles
radius, was from sixty-five to one hundred and thirty feet thick. At
the back of the island the thickness of the ash beds was from one
hundred and ninety-five to two hundred and sixty feet. Masses of
floating pumice encumbered the strait. The coarser particles of this
ash fell over a known area equal to 285,170 square miles, a space
equal to the whole of the New England States, New York, New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. It is calculated that the
matter so ejected must have been considerably over a cubic mile in
volume.

Another distinguishing fea