Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, Fifth Series, No. 45, Vol. I, November 8, 1884 — John Shaqi
Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, Fifth Series, No. 45, Vol. I, November 8, 1884Various
History
Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, Fifth Series, No. 45, Vol. I, November 8, 1884
Various
Periodicals
The enormous power of this eruption can only be adequately understood
by its effects; these we now briefly summarise. The explosion itself,
according to Dr Verbeek, one of the Dutch Commission appointed to
investigate the nature and results of this catastrophe, caused the
north part of the island to be blown away, and to fall eight miles to
the north, forming what is now named Steer’s Island. Moreover, the
north-east portion of the island of Krakatoa was also hurled into the
air, passed over Lang Island, and fell at a distance of seven miles,
forming what is now known as Calmeyer Island. In proof of this, we have
the fact elicited by the newly made marine survey of the Straits, that
‘_the bottom surrounding these new islands has not risen_.’ This would
have been the case had they been upheaved in the usual way. Not only
so, but the bottom round these new islands shows a slightly _increased
depth_ in the direction of the submarine pit, nearly one thousand feet
deep, which now marks the place the peak of Krakatoa occupied prior
to the convulsion. But out of the midst of this deep depression there
rises ‘like a gigantic club’ a remarkable column of rock of an area
not more than thirty-three square feet, which projects sixteen feet
above the surface of the sea. The southern part is all that is now left
of the island of Krakatoa, and this fragment on its north side is now
bounded by a magnificent precipitous cliff more than two thousand five
hundred feet high. It has been thought by some, however, that the first
portion of the island was blown away on the evening of August 26th, and
that on the following morning the larger mass, answering to Calmeyer
Island, was shot out by an effort still more titanic.
The shock of the explosion was felt at a distance of four thousand
miles, being equal to an area of one-sixth of the earth’s surface—that
is, at Burmah, Ceylon and the Andaman Islands to the north-west, in
some parts of India, at Saigon and Manila to the north, at Dorey in
the Geelvink Bay (New Guinea) to the east, and throughout Northern
Australia to the south-west. Lloyd’s agents at Batavia, in Java, stated
that on the eve of this vast explosion, the detonations ‘grew louder,
till in the early morning the reports and concussions were simply
deafening, not to say alarming.’ So violent were the air-waves, due to
this cause, that walls were rent by them at a distance of five hundred
miles, and so great the volume of smoke and ashes, that Batavia, eighty
miles off, was shrouded in complete darkness for two hours. Nearly four
months after the eruption, masses of floating pumice, each several
acres in extent, were seen in the Straits of Sunda.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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