Atlantis: The Antedeluvian WorldDonnelly, Ignatius
History
Atlantis: The Antedeluvian World
Donnelly, Ignatius
Atlantis (Legendary place); Deluge; Ethnology
On the 8th of October, 1822, a great earthquake occurred on the island
of Java, near the mountain of Galung Gung. "A loud explosion was heard,
the earth shook, and immense columns of hot water and boiling mud, mixed
with burning brimstone, ashes, and lapilli, of the size of nuts, were
projected from the mountain like a water-spout, with such prodigious
violence that large quantities fell beyond the river Tandoi, which is
forty miles distant.... The first eruption lasted nearly five hours;
and on the following days the rain fell in torrents, and the rivers,
densely charged with mud, deluged the country far and wide. At the end
of four days (October 12th), a second eruption occurred, more violent
than the first, in which hot water and mud were again vomited, and great
blocks of basalt were thrown to the distance of seven miles from the
volcano. There was at the same time a violent earthquake, the face of
the mountain was utterly changed, its summits broken down, and one side,
which had been covered with trees, became an enormous gulf in the form
of a semicircle. Over 4000 persons were killed and 114 villages
destroyed." (Lyell's "Principles of Geology," p. 430.)
In 1831 a new island was born in the Mediterranean, near the coast of
Sicily. It was called Graham's Island. It came up with an earthquake,
and "a water-spout sixty feet high and eight hundred yards in
circumference rising from the sea." In about a month the island was two
hundred feet high and three miles in circumference; it soon, however,
sank beneath the sea.
The Canary Islands were probably a part of the original empire of
Atlantis. On the 1st of September, 1730, the earth split open near Yaiza,
in the island of Lancerota. In one night a considerable hill of ejected
matter was thrown up; in a few days another vent opened and gave out a
lava stream which overran several villages. It flowed at first rapidly,
like water, but became afterward heavy and slow, like honey. On the 11th
of September more lava flowed out, covering up a village, and
precipitating itself with a horrible roar into the sea. Dead fish
floated on the waters in indescribable multitudes, or were thrown dying
on the shore; the cattle throughout the country dropped lifeless to the
ground, suffocated by putrid vapors, which condensed and fell down in
drops. These manifestations were accompanied by a storm such as the
people of the country had never known before. These dreadful commotions
lasted for five years. The lavas thrown out covered one-third of the
whole island of Lancerota.
CALABRIAN PEASANTS INGULFED BY CREVASSES (1783).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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