EARTHQUAKE OF KRAKATAU.
and about twenty-six miles from Anjer, was the uninhabited
island of Krakatau, only five miles in length
and three m breadth, culminating in a peak rising
2,750 feet above the sea, which, in the month of
August, 1883,^ was visited by a stupendous volcanic
eruption, creating impenetrable darkness for hundreds
of square miles around, and, in its effects, reducing the
island to a fraction of its original size. I t is curious to
note the flow of pumice-stone thus released : its progress
durmg the first five months after the occurrence must
have been slow, for in January, 1884,the “Marlborough"
ss. passed through a flux of the debris 320 miles N.E.
of Krakatau on her way to Soerabaya; after that a
strong easterly current seems to have wafted it across
towards the African coast, where it positively littered
the beach m many places between Zanzibar and Natal,
as witnessed by Sir John Kirk in the month of June,
and by Captain Beeves, of the barque “ Umvoti,” in
September, 1884, having thus drifted a distance of
about 4,500 miles in thirteen months; numerous
records also prove that the disturbance caused by the
velocity of the waves in consequence of the eruption
even reached the coasts of France and England.
Java, lying between S. Lat. 5° 52' and 8° 46', and E.
Long. 105° 1 0 ' and 114°, 35', is exceedingly hilly, the