School Reading by Grades: Sixth Year. James Baldwin

then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died,

       The fair, meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side.

       In the cold, moist earth we laid her, when the forests cast the leaf,

       And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief:

       Yet not unmeet it was that one like that young friend of ours,

       So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers.

THE GREAT VOLCANIC ERUPTION.

       Table of Contents

      In 1883 the most destructive volcanic eruption ever known occurred in the Straits of Sunda and the neighboring islands. The trouble began on Sunday morning, the 13th of May. Java, Sumatra, and Borneo were convulsed by earthquakes. The surface of the earth rocked, houses tumbled down, and big trees were shaken to the ground. Earthquakes are no rarity in those islands, but this earthquake showed no signs of ceasing. The earth quivered constantly, and from its depths there seemed to rise strange sounds and hollow explosions.

      On Thursday there came a telegram from Anjer, ninety miles away, on the northwest coast of Java, intimating that a volcano had broken out at Krakatoa island, about thirty miles west of Anjer, in Sunda Strait. I was requested by the Dutch government to go to the scene of action and take scientific observations, and by four o'clock that afternoon I started with a party on board a special steamer from Batavia.

      As we rounded the northern extremity of Java, we saw ascending from Krakatoa, still fifty miles away, an immense column of smoke. Its appearance changed as we approached. First it looked like flame, then it appeared to be steam, and finally it had the appearance of a pillar of fire inside one of white fleecy wool. The diameter of this pillar of fire and smoke was, I should think, at least one and a half miles. All the while we heard that sullen, thunderous roar which had been a feature of this disturbance ever since Sunday, and was now becoming louder.

       We remained on deck all night and watched. The din increased till we could with difficulty hear one another's voices. Dawn approached, and when the rays of the sun fell on the shores of Krakatoa, we saw them reflected from what we thought was a river, and we resolved to steam into its mouth and disembark.

      When we came to within three quarters of a mile of the shore, we discovered that what we supposed to be a river was a torrent of molten sulphur. The smell almost overpowered us. We steamed away to the windward, and made for the other side of the island.

      This island, though volcanic, had up till now been quiet for at least a century. It was eight or ten miles long and four wide, and was covered with forests of fine mahogany and rosewood trees. It was inhabited by a few fishermen, but we found no signs of these people. The land, down to the water's edge, was covered with powdered pumice stone, which rained down from the clouds around the great column of fire. Everything with life had already disappeared from the landscape, which was covered with a steaming mass of stones and ashes.

      Several of us landed and began walking towards the volcano. We sank deep in the soft pumice, which blistered our feet with its heat. I climbed painfully upwards toward the crater, in order to measure it with my sextant; but in a short time the heat melted the mercury off the mirror of the instrument. I was then half a mile from the crater.

      As I was returning to the shore, I saw the bottom of each footstep I had made on my way up glowing red with the heat from beneath. We photographed the scene from the deck of the steamer, where the fire hose was kept playing constantly, wetting the rigging and everything about the ship to prevent her from taking fire.

      The steamer then returned to Batavia, and I went to reside at Anjer. From my villa on the hillside a mile inland, I could see Krakatoa, thirty miles away, belching out its never-ending eruption. We supposed that it would go on till it burned itself out, and that then it would become quiet again. But in this we were mistaken.

      On Sunday morning, the 12th of August, nearly three months later, I was sitting on the veranda of my house taking my morning cup of tea. I saw the fishing boats lying at anchor in the bay, the fishermen themselves being on shore at rest. As my gaze rested on the boats, I suddenly became aware that they were all beginning to move rapidly in one direction. Then in an instant, to my intense surprise, they all disappeared.

      I ran farther up the hillside to get a better view, and looked far out to sea. Instantly a great glare of fire right in the midst of the sea caught my eye. All the way across the bay and the strait, in a line of flame reaching to Krakatoa itself, the bottom of the sea seemed to have cracked open so that the subterraneous fires were belching forth. On either side the waters were pouring into this gulf with a tremendous noise, but the fire was not extinguished.

      The hissing roar brought out the people of Anjer in excited crowds. My eyes were turned away for a moment as I beckoned to some one, and during that moment came a terrible, deafening explosion. It stunned me; and when I was able again to turn my eyes toward the bay, I could see nothing. The whole scene was shrouded in darkness, from amid which came cries and groans, the creaking of breaking beams in the houses, and, above all, the roar of the breakers on the shore. The city of Anjer, with its sixty thousand people, had been engulfed!

      I afterwards found that the water was one hundred feet deep where the city of Anjer had been, and that the coast line had moved one and a half miles inland. A big island in the strait had been split in two, with a wide passage between its parts. An island to the northwest of Krakatoa had wholly disappeared. The air was filled with minute particles of dust, which after some weeks spread even to Europe and America. What the causes of such a tremendous convulsion may have been, it is quite impossible accurately to say.

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      The foregoing narrative was written by J. T. Van Gestel, who was at the time residing in the island of Java. Compare his description of this event with those of the eruption of Vesuvius and the destruction of Pompeii, given in "School Reading by Grades—Fifth Year." Read also the younger Pliny's description of the eruption of Vesuvius. It may be found in Church and Brodribb's translation of selections from Pliny's Letters. Other interesting readings about volcanoes may be found in "Volcanoes, Past and Present," by Edward Hull, and in "Volcanoes and Earthquakes," by Dr. George Hartwig.