Java and her neighbours; a traveller's notes in Java Celebes, the Moluccas and Sumatra (1914) (14763673695)

Identifier: javaherneighbour00walc (find matches)

Title: Java and her neighbours; a traveller's notes in Java Celebes, the Moluccas and Sumatra

Year: 1914 (1910s)

Authors: Walcott, Arthur Stuart, 1869-1923

Subjects:

Publisher: New York Putnam

Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto

Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

Text Appearing Before Image:

a passenger retained a suf-ficient interest in the outside world to remain ondeck. Krakatoa, or Rakata, is a crater-island or island-crater that brought itself prominently before theeyes of all mankind in its great, historic eruption ofAugust, 1883. In this titanic convulsion themonster volcano nearly destroyed itself, totallyobliterated from the map an island of considerablesize, changed completely a part of the neighbouringcoast-line of Java, expelled eighteen cubic kilo-meters of mud and lava from its rent crater, andemitted clouds of vapour which rose to an altitudeover five times as great as that of the summit ofMont Blanc. Other facts are even more impres-sive. The noise of the explosion was heard nearlythree thousand miles away, darkened skies werereported for as much as twenty-four hours to adistance of over a hundred miles, and ashes fellover all Southern Sumatra and Western Java.Smaller particles of ash, blown high into the upperair, remained in suspense for weeks and gave a

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WEST COAST OF SUMATRA 291 peculiarly lurid coloiiring to the sunsets as far evenas Australia. One terrible aftermath of the explosion was atidal wave, seventy or eighty feet high, whichswept over the near-by coasts of Java andSumatra, carrying death and desolation in itswake. The marks left on the hillsides by thiscolossal wave are still plainly visible at TelokBetong, and the story is told that a smallsteamer was dragged from its anchorage anddeposited in the market-place of a native villagetwo miles away and thirty feet above sea-level.On the west coast of Java some 36,000 people weredrowned and their homes carried off to sea in therecession of this monstrous wave. To-day the island of Krakatoa is a misshapenmass and bears no resemblance to the gracefulcones which enclose so many of the island craters.The traces of the great eruption are being rapidlyconcealed by a thick growth of vegetation, and theragged slopes and bare, ugly levels of yesterday arealready nearly covered. From a d

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1914

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