The Wonder Book of Volcanoes and EarthquakesHouston, Edwin J. (Edwin James)
Science
The Wonder Book of Volcanoes and Earthquakes
Houston, Edwin J. (Edwin James)
Earthquakes; Volcanoes
Perhaps the most destructive eruption of any of the volcanic mountains
of Java was of a volcanic mountain called Papandayang. This volcano,
situated on the southern coast of the island, is 7,034 feet in
height, and was in eruption in 1772. According to Scrope, from whom
the details of this eruption have been obtained, two others of the
many volcanoes on Java, situated at 184 and 352 geographical miles
respectively from Papandayang, broke out at the same time into active
eruption, although several intervening cones were undisturbed.
The eruption of Papandayang was of the explosive type, a large part
of the mountain being broken off by the great force of the eruption,
and its materials scattered far and wide over the surrounding country.
During this eruption forty villages with their inhabitants were
buried by great showers of ashes. An area of fifteen by six miles was
left in the shape of a huge pit by the great eruption. It was at
first believed by some that this pit was due to the actual sinking
in of the ground, but a more careful study has shown that it was in
reality caused by the great force of the eruption, being, in point
of fact, a vast explosive crater that was formed by the expulsion of
the materials that formerly filled it. Some idea of the great extent
of this eruption of Papandayang may be had by the size of this huge
crater that was six by fifteen miles in diameter.
Another great volcanic mountain in Java that had a terrific eruption
was Galungoon, or Galung Gung. According to Lyell, from whom the facts
of this eruption have been obtained, prior to this eruption the slopes
of the mountain were highly cultivated and densely populated. There
was a circular pit or crater on the summit of the mountain, but there
had been no traditions of any eruptions prior to 1822.
In July, 1822, the waters of the Kunir River, one of the small rivers
that flow down the slopes of the mountain, were observed to become
hot and turbid. On the 8th of October, 1822, a terrific explosion was
suddenly heard, accompanied by great earthquake shocks, when immense
columns of hot water and boiling mud, mixed with burning brimstone,
ashes, and lapilli, were thrown violently like a great waterspout from
the opening in the mountain, with such enormous violence that great
quantities fell across the River Tandoi, forty miles distant, while
the valleys in the neighborhood were filled with a burning torrent.
The rivers overflowed their banks and produced great destruction by
floods of burning and boiling materials that washed away all the
villages and cultivated fields in their path. During this eruption an
extended area was covered with boiling mud in which were completely
buried the bodies of many of those who perished.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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