the invisible air current which carried it along. Nor need
it be thought that the quantity of material projected from Krakatoa
should have been inadequate to produce effects of this world-wide
description. Imagine that the material which was blown to the winds of
heaven by the supreme convulsion of Krakatoa could be all recovered and
swept into one vast heap. Imagine that the heap were to have its bulk
measured by a vessel consisting of a cube one mile long, one mile broad
and one mile deep; it has been estimated that even this prodigious
vessel would have to be filled to the brim at least ten times before all
the products of Krakatoa had been measured."

It is not specially to the quantity of material ejected from Krakatoa
that it owes its reputation. Great as it was, it has been much
surpassed. Professor Judd says that the great eruptions of
Papapandayang, in Java, in 1772, of Skaptur Jokull, in Iceland, in 1783,
and of Tamboro, in Sumbawa, in 1815, were marked by the extrusion of
much larger quantities of material. The special feature of the Krakatoa
eruption was its extreme violence, which flung volcanic dust to a height
probably never before attained, and produced sea and air waves of an
intensity unparalleled in the records of volcanic action. Judd thinks
this was due to the situation of the crater, and the possible inflow
through fissures of a great volume of sea water to the interior lava,
the result being the sudden production of an enormous volume of steam.

EXTRAORDINARY RED SUNSETS

The red sunsets spoken of above were so extraordinary in character
that a fuller description of them seems advisable. A remarkable fact
concerning them is the great rapidity with which they were disseminated
to distant regions of the earth. They appeared around the entire
equatorial zone in a few days after the eruption, this doubtless being
due to the great rapidity with which the volcanic dust was carried by
the upper air current. They were seen at Rodriguez, 3,000 miles away, on
August 28, and within a week in every part of the torrid zone. From
this zone they spread north and south with less rapidity. Their first
appearance in Australia was on September 15th, and at the Cape of Good
Hope on the 20th. On the latter day they were observed in California and
the Southern United States. They were first seen in England on November
9th. Elsewhere in Europe and the United States they appeared from
November 20th to 30th.

The