SOME RECENT ASTRONOMICAL EVENTS. 163 



States, while independently sent out, proceeded together in entire 

 harniony and good fellowsiiip, and added, so far as was in their power, 

 to each others success and enjo3^raent. 



Proceeding- from Washington on the 5th day of February, 1901, we 

 rc^u'hed San Francisco on the 11th of the month. F,urther passag-e 

 ^\•as arranged for upon the army transport Shei'idan from San Fran- 

 cisco, hj way of Honohihi, to Manila. The expeditions left San 

 Francisco on February 10 and after a somewhat rough passage (during 

 which, as we afterwards learned, the ill-fated steamer Rto Jauairo 

 went ashore at San Francisco) we reached Honolulu, where w^e stayed 

 several daj^s. The interest and enjoyment of our stay there was 

 greatly increased by the kindness and attentions of the Social Science 

 Clul) of Honolulu. 



Leaving Honolulu, we reached Manila March 18, and after a staj" of 

 a few days there, during which very interesting visits were made to 

 the office of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey and to the 

 ]Manila Observatory^, we proceeded bv the U. S. ship General Alava^ 

 which had been detailed by the Nav}'^ Department for the purpose, 

 direct from Manila to Padang, on the west coast of Sumatra. 



^^'e, of course, being without exception northern hemisphere 

 observers, took great interest in seeing the unfamiliar constellations 

 I'ise out of the south, and in seeing our familiar north star gradually 

 disapj)ear. The officers of the ship took every possible care for our 

 comfort, and we were also entertained (and some of us immersed) upon 

 passing the equator, by the court of His ^Nlajest}^ Neptunus Rex, who 

 came aboard in true man-of-w^ar style. Another incident of great 

 interest was the sight of the famous volcano Krakatau, in the Strait 

 of Sunda, whose eruption in 1883 is so well remembered as the occasion 

 of g'reat loss of life and also of interesting* astronomical and meteoro- 

 logical occurrences, due to the volcanic dust which was thrown up to 

 such extreme heights that it became distributed all over the w^orld." 



We reached our destination at Padang April 4, near sunset, and 

 while the passage from Manila had been most quiet and delightful, 3'et. 



''It will be recalled that the explosion, which occurred on Monday, the 27th day 

 of August, 1883, and Mas heard several thousand miles, took place about 10 o'clock 

 in the morning, as determined, not by any observers, for none such survived to tell 

 what they saw, but by meteorological observations of the air waves which, proceeding 

 from the volcano, went round the world, were reflected back from the antipodes, 

 and re-reflected from the volcano, seven comjilete passages of the globe being distin- 

 guished l)efore they wholly subsided. Furthermore, a water M'ave was thrown up, at 

 some points as much as 150 feet above sea level, on the sides of the Strait of Sunda; 

 and this water wave was observed at the Cape of Good Hope, at Cape Horn, and 

 even in the English Channel, no less than 11,000 miles distant. The Strait of Sunda 

 was greatly altered in its configuration, a channel over a hundred fathoms deep exist- 

 ing where ])reviously there was a jwirtion of a mountain over a thousand feet above 

 sea level, while in addition a wholly new island was formed. 



