CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.
TELLS CHIEFLY OF THE WONDERFUL EFFECTS OF THIS ERUPTION ON THE WORLD ATLARGE.
The great explosions of that morning had done more damage and hadachieved results more astounding than lies in the power of languageadequately to describe, or of history to parallel.
Let us take a glance at this subject in passing.
An inhabitant of Anjer--owner of a hotel, a ship-chandler's store, twohouses, and a dozen boats--went down to the beach about six on themorning of that fateful 27th of August. He had naturally been impressedby the night of the 26th, though, accustomed as he was to volcaniceruptions, he felt no apprehensions as to the safety of the town. Hewent to look to the moorings of his boats, leaving his family of sevenbehind him. While engaged in this work he observed a wave of immensesize approaching. He leaped into one of his boats, which was caught upby the wave and swept inland, carrying its owner there in safety. Butthis was the wave that sealed the doom of the town and most of itsinhabitants, including the hotel-keeper's family and all that hepossessed.
This is one only out of thousands of cases of bereavement anddestruction.
A lighthouse-keeper was seated in his solitary watch-tower, speculating,doubtless, on the probable continuance of such a violent outbreak, whilehis family and mates--accustomed to sleep in the midst of elementalwar--were resting peacefully in the rooms below, when one of the mightywaves suddenly appeared, thundered past, and swept the lighthouse withall its inhabitants away.
This shows but one of the many disasters to lighthouses in SundaStraits.
A Dutch man-of-war--the _Berouw_--was lying at anchor in Lampong Bay,fifty miles from Krakatoa. The great wave came, tore it from itsanchorage, and carried it--like the vessel of our friend David Roy--nearly two miles inland! Masses of coral of immense size and weightwere carried four miles inland by the same wave. The river at Anjer waschoked up; the conduit which used to carry water into the place wasdestroyed, and the town itself was laid in ruins.
But these are only a few of the incidents of the great catastrophe. Whocan conceive, much less tell of, those terrible details of sudden deathand disaster to thousands of human beings, resulting from an eruptionwhich destroyed towns like Telok Betong, Anjer, Tyringin, etcetera,besides numerous villages and hamlets on the shores of Java and Sumatra,and caused the destruction of more than 36,000 souls?
But it is to results of a very different kind, and on a much moreextended scale, that we must turn if we would properly estimate themagnitude, the wide-spreading and far-reaching influences, and theextraordinary character, of the Krakatoa outburst of 1883.
In the first place, it is a fact, testified to by some of the best-knownmen of science, that the shock of the explosion extended _appreciably_right round the world, and seventeen miles, (some say even higher!) upinto the heavens.
Mr Verbeek, in his treatise on this subject, estimates that a cubicmile of Krakatoa was propelled in the form of the finest dust into thehigher regions of the atmosphere--probably about thirty miles! The dustthus sent into the sky was of "ultra-microscopic fineness," and ittravelled round and round the world in a westerly direction, producingthose extraordinary sunsets and gorgeous effects and afterglows whichbecame visible in the British Isles in the month of November followingthe eruption; and the mighty waves which caused such destruction in thevicinity of Sunda Straits travelled--not once, but at least--six timesround the globe, as was proved by trustworthy and independentobservations of tide-gauges and barometers made and recorded at the sametime in nearly all lands--including our own.
Other volcanoes, it is said by those who have a right to speak in regardto such matters, have ejected more "stuff," but not one has equalledKrakatoa in the intensity of its explosions, the appalling results ofthe sea-waves, the wonderful effects in the sky, and the almostmiraculous nature of the sounds.
Seated on a log under a palm-tree in Batavia, on that momentous morningof the 27th, was a sailor who had been left behind sick by Captain Roywhen he went on his rather Quixotic trip to the Keeling Islands. He wasa somewhat delicate son of the sea. Want of self-restraint was hiscomplaint--leading to a surfeit of fruit and other things, whichterminated in a severe fit of indigestion and indisposition to life ingeneral. He was smoking--that being a sovereign and infallible cure forindigestion and all other ills that flesh is heir to, as every oneknows!
"I say, old man," he inquired, with that cheerful tone and air whichusually accompanies incapacity for food. "Do it always rain asheshere?"
The old man whom he addressed was a veteran Malay seaman.
"No," replied the Malay, "sometimes it rain mud--hot mud."
"Do it? Oh! well--anything for variety, I s'pose," returned the sailor,with a growl which had reference to internal disarrangements.
"Is it often as dark as this in the daytime, an' is the sun usuallygreen?" he asked carelessly, more for the sake of distracting the mindfrom other matters than for the desire of knowledge.
"Sometime it's more darker," replied the old man. "I've seed it so darkthat you couldn't see how awful dark it was."
As he spoke, a sound that has been described by ear-witnesses as"deafening," smote upon their tympanums, the log on which they satquivered, the earth seemed to tremble, and several dishes in aneighbouring hut were thrown down and broken.
"I say, old man, suthin' busted there," remarked the sailor, taking thepipe from his mouth and quietly ramming its contents down with the endof his blunt forefinger.
The Malay looked grave.
"The gasometer?" suggested the sailor.
"No, that _never_ busts."
"A noo mountain come into action, p'raps, an blow'd its top _off_?"
"Shouldn't wonder if that's it--close at hand too. We's used to thathere. But them's bigger cracks than or'nar'."
The old Malay was right as to the cause, but wrong as to distance.Instead of being a volcano "close at hand," it was Krakatoa evisceratingitself a hundred miles off, and the sound of its last grand effort"extended over 50 degrees, equal to about 3000 miles."
On that day all the gas lights were extinguished in Batavia, and thepictures rattled on the walls as though from the action of anearthquake. But there was no earthquake. It was the air-wave fromKrakatoa, and the noise produced by the air-waves that followed wasdescribed as "deafening."
The effect of the sounds of the explosions on the Straits Settlementsgenerally was not only striking but to some extent amusing. At Carimon,in Java--355 miles distant from Krakatoa--it was supposed that a vesselin distress was firing guns, and several native boats were sent off torender assistance, but no distressed vessel was to be found! At Acheen,in Sumatra--1073 miles distant--they supposed that a fort was beingattacked and the troops were turned out under arms. At Singapore--522miles off--they fancied that the detonations came from a vessel indistress and two steamers were despatched to search for it. And herethe effect on the telephone, extending to Ishore, was remarkable. Onraising the tubes a perfect roar as of a waterfall was heard. Byshouting at the top of his voice, the clerk at one end could make theclerk at the other end hear, but he could not render a wordintelligible. At Perak--770 miles off--the sounds were thought to bedistant salvos of artillery, and Commander the Honourable F Vereker,R.N., of H.M.S. _Magpie_, when 1227 miles distant, (in latitude 5degrees 52 minutes North, longitude 118 degrees 22 minutes East), statesthat the detonations of Krakatoa were distinctly heard by those on boardhis ship, and by the inhabitants of the coast as far as Banguey Island,on August 27th. He adds that they resembled distant heavy cannonading.In a letter from Saint Lucia Bay--1116 miles distant--it was stated thatthe eruption was plainly heard all over Borneo. A government steamerwas sent out from the Island of Timor--1351 miles off--to ascertain thecause of the disturbance! In South Australia also, at places 2250 milesaway, explosions were heard on the 26th and 27th which "awakened"people, and were thought worthy of being recorded and reported. FromTavoy, in Burmah--1478 miles away--the report came--"
All day on August27th unusual sounds were heard, resembling the boom of guns. Thinkingthere might be a wreck or a ship in distress, the Tavoy Superintendentsent out the police launch, but they `could see nothing.'" And so on,far and near, similar records were made, the most distant spot where thesounds were reported to have been heard being Rodriguez, in the Pacific,nearly 3000 miles distant!
One peculiar feature of the records is that some ships in the immediateneighbourhood of Krakatoa did not experience the shock in proportionateseverity. Probably this was owing to their being so near that a greatpart of the concussion and sound flew over them--somewhat in the sameway that the pieces of a bomb-shell fly over men who, being too near toescape by running, escape by flinging themselves flat on the ground.
Each air-wave which conveyed these sounds, commencing at Krakatoa as acentre, spread out in an ever-increasing circle till it reached adistance of 180 degrees from its origin and encircled the earth at itswidest part, after which it continued to advance in a contracting formuntil it reached the antipodes of the volcano; whence it was reflectedor reproduced and travelled back again to Krakatoa. Here it was turnedright-about-face and again despatched on its long journey. In this wayit oscillated backward and forward not fewer than six times beforetraces of it were lost. We say "traces," because these remarkable factswere ascertained, tracked, and corroborated by independent barometricobservation in all parts of the earth.
For instance, the passage of the great air-wave from Krakatoa to itsantipodes, and from its antipodes back to Krakatoa, was registered sixtimes by the automatic barometer at Greenwich. The instrument at KewObservatory confirmed the records of Greenwich, and so did thebarometers of other places in the kingdom. Everywhere in Europe alsothis fact was corroborated, and in some places even a seventhoscillation was recorded. The Greenwich record shows that the air-wavestook about thirty-six hours to travel from pole to pole, thus provingthat they travelled at about the rate of ordinary sound-waves, which,roughly speaking, travel at the rate of between six and seven hundredmiles an hour.
The height of the sea-waves that devastated the neighbouring shores,being variously estimated at from 50 to 135 feet, is sufficientlyaccounted for by the intervention of islands and headlands, etcetera,which, of course, tended to diminish the force, height, and volume ofwaves in varying degrees.
These, like the air-waves, were also registered--by self-actingtide-gauges and by personal observation--all over the world, and theobservations _coincided as to date with the great eruptions of the 26thand 27th of August_. The influence of the sea-waves was observed andnoted in the Java sea--which is shallow and where there are innumerableobstructions--as far as 450 miles, but to the west they swept over thedeep waters of the Indian Ocean on to Cape Horn, and even, it is said,to the English Channel.
The unusual disturbance of ocean in various places was sufficientlystriking. At Galle, in Ceylon, where the usual rise and fall of thetide is 2 feet, the master-attendant reports that on the afternoon ofthe 27th four remarkable waves were noticed in the port. The last ofthese was preceded by an unusual recession of the sea to such an extentthat small boats at their anchorage were left aground--a thing that hadnever been seen before. The period of recession was only one-and-a-halfminutes; then the water paused, as it were, for a brief space, and,beginning to rise, reached the level of the highest high-water mark inless than two minutes, thus marking a difference of 8 feet 10 inchesinstead of the ordinary 2 feet.
At one place there was an ebb and flood tide, of unusual extent, withinhalf-an-hour. At another, a belt of land, including a burying-ground,was washed away, so that, according to the observer, "it appeared as ifthe dead had sought shelter with the living in a neighbouring cocoa-nutgarden!" Elsewhere the tides were seen to advance and recede ten ortwelve times--in one case even twenty times--on the 27th. AtTrincomalee the sea receded three times and returned with singularforce, at one period leaving part of the shore suddenly bare, with fishstruggling in the mud. The utilitarian tendency of mankind was at oncemade manifest by some fishermen who, seizing the opportunity, dashedinto the struggling mass and began to reap the accidental harvest,when--alas for the poor fishermen!--the sea rushed in again and drovethem all away.
In the Mauritius, however, the fishers were more fortunate, for whentheir beach was exposed in a similar manner, they succeeded in capturinga good many fish before the water returned.
Even sharks were disturbed in their sinister and slimy habits of life bythis outburst of Krakatoa--and no wonder, when it is recorded that insome places "the sea looked like water boiling heavily in a pot," andthat "the boats which were afloat were swinging in all directions." Atone place several of these monsters were flung out of their native homeinto pools, where they were left struggling till their enemy manterminated their career.
Everywhere those great waves produced phenomena which were so strikingas to attract the attention of all classes of people, to ensure recordin most parts of the world, and to call for the earnest investigation ofthe scientific men of many lands--and the conclusion to which such menhave almost universally come is, that the strange vagaries of the seaall over the earth, the mysterious sounds heard in so many widelydistant places, and the wonderful effects in the skies of every quarterof the globe, were all due to the eruption of the Krakatoa volcano in1883.
With reference to these last--the sky-effects--a few words may not beout of place here.
The superfine "ultra-microscopic" dust, which was blown by the volcanoin quantities so enormous to such unusual heights, was, after droppingits heavier particles back to earth, caught by the breezes which alwaysblow in the higher regions from east to west, and carried by them formany months round and round the world. The dust was thickly and notwidely spread at first, but as time went on it gradually extended itselfon either side, becoming visible to more and more of earth'sinhabitants, and at the same time becoming necessarily less dense.
Through this medium the sun's rays had to penetrate. In so far as thedust-particles were opaque they would obscure these rays; where theywere transparent or polished they would refract and reflect them. Thatthe material of which those dust-particles was composed was very varioushas been ascertained, proved, and recorded by the Krakatoa Committee.The attempt to expound this matter would probably overtax the enduranceof the average reader, yet it may interest all to know that thisdust-cloud travelled westward within the tropics at the rate of aboutdouble the speed of an express train--say 120 miles an hour; crossed theIndian Ocean and Africa in three days, the Atlantic in two, America intwo, and, in short, put a girdle round the world in thirteen days.Moreover, the cloud of dust was so big that it took two or three days topass any given point. During its second circumnavigation it wasconsiderably spread and thinned, and the third time still more so,having expanded enough to include Europe and the greater part of NorthAmerica. It had thinned away altogether and disappeared in the springof 1884.
Who has not seen--at least read or heard of--the gorgeous skies of theautumn of 1883? Not only in Britain, but in all parts of the world,these same skies were seen, admired, and commented on as marvellous.And so they were. One of the chief peculiarities about them, besidestheir splendour, was the fact that they consisted chiefly of"afterglows"--that is, an increase of light and splendour _after_ thesetting of the sun, when, in an ordinary state of things, the greyshadows of evening would have descended on the world. Greenish-bluesuns; pink clouds; bright yellow, orange, and crimson afterglows;gorgeous, magnificent, blood-red skies--the commentators seemed unableto find language adequately to describe them. Listen to a Germanobserver's remarks on the subject:--
"The display of November 29th was the grandest and most manifold. Igive a description as exactly as possible, for its overwhelmingmagnificence still presents itself to me as if it had been yesterday.When the sun had set about a quarter of an hour there was not muchafterglow, but I had observed a remarkably yellow bow in the south,about 10 degrees above the horizon. In about ten minutes more
this arcrose pretty quickly, extended itself all over the east and up to andbeyond the zenith. The sailors declared, `Sir, that is the NorthernLights.' I thought I had never seen Northern Lights in greatersplendour. After five minutes more the light had faded, though notvanished, in the east and south, and the finest purple-red rose up inthe south-west; one could imagine one's-self in Fairyland."
All this, and a great deal more, was caused by the dust of Krakatoa!
"But how--how--why?" exclaims an impatient and puzzled reader.
"Ay--there's the rub." Rubbing, by the way, may have had something todo with it. At all events we are safe to say that whatever there was ofelectricity in the matter resulted from friction.
Here is what the men of science say--as far as we can gather andcondense.
The fine dust blown out of Krakatoa was found, under the microscope, toconsist of excessively thin, transparent plates or irregular specks ofpumice--which inconceivably minute fragments were caused by enormoussteam pressure in the interior and the sudden expansion of the massesblown out into the atmosphere. Of this glassy dust, that which wasblown into the regions beyond the clouds must have been much finer eventhan that which was examined. These glass fragments were said by DrFlugel to contain either innumerable air-bubbles or minute needle-likecrystals, or both. Small though these vesicles were when ejected fromthe volcano, they would become still smaller by bursting when theysuddenly reached a much lower pressure of atmosphere at a great height.Some of them, however, owing to tenacity of material and other causes,might have failed to burst and would remain floating in the upper air asperfect microscopic glass balloons. Thus the dust was a mass ofparticles of every conceivable shape, and so fine that no watches,boxes, or instruments were tight enough to exclude from their interioreven that portion of the dust which was heavy enough to remain on earth!
Now, to the unscientific reader it is useless to say more than that theinnumerable and varied positions of these glassy particles, sometransparent, others semi-transparent or opaque, reflecting the sun'srays in different directions, with a complex modification of colour andeffect resulting from the blueness of the sky, the condition of theatmosphere, and many other causes--all combined to produce theremarkable appearances of light and colour which aroused the admirationand wonder of the world in 1883.
The more one thinks of these things, and the deeper one dives into themysteries of nature, the more profoundly is one impressed at once with ahumbling sense of the limited amount of one's knowledge, and anawe-inspiring appreciation of the illimitable fields suggested by thatcomprehensive expression: "The Wonderful Works of God."
Blown to Bits: The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago Page 29