Physical Geography. 17 



of their children are remembered, and the dates of many im- 

 portant events are determined. 



I can only briefly allude to the many fearful eruptions that 

 have taken place in this region. In the amount of injury to 

 life and property, and in the magnitude of their effects, they 

 have not been surpassed by any upon record. Forty villages 

 were destroyed by the eruption of Papandayang, in Java, in 

 1772, when the whole mountain was blown up by repeated ex- 

 plosions, and a large lake left in its place. By the great erup- 

 tion of Tomboro, in Sumbawa, in 1815, 12,000 people were de- 

 stroyed, and the ashes darkened the air and fell thickly upon 

 the earth and sea for 300 miles round. Even quite recently, 

 since I quitted the country, a mountain which had been quies- 

 cent for more than 200 years suddenly burst into activity. 

 The island of Makian, one of the Moluccas, was rent open in 

 1646 by a violent eruption, which left a huge chasm on one 

 side, extending into the heart of the mountain. It was when 

 I last visited it, in 1860, clothed with vegetation to the sum- 

 mit, and contained twelve populous Malay villages. On the 

 29th of December, 1862, after 215 years of perfect inaction, it 

 again suddenly burst forth, blowing up and completely alter- 

 ing the appearance of the mountain, destroying the greater 

 part of the inhabitants, and sending forth such volumes of 

 ashes as to darken the air at Ternate, forty miles off, and to 

 almost entirely destroy the growing croj^s on that and the sur- 

 rounding islands. 



The island of Java contains more volcanoes, active and 

 extinct, than any other known district of equal extent. They 

 are about forty -five in number, and many of them exhibit most 

 beautiful examples of the volcanic cone on a large scale, single 

 or double, with entire or truncated summits, and averaging 

 10,000 feet high. 



It is now well ascertained that almost all volcanoes have 

 been slowly built up by the accumulation of matter — mud, 

 ashes, and lava — ejected by themselves. The openings or 

 craters, however, frequently shift their position; so that a 

 country may be covered with a more or less irregular series 

 of hills in chains and masses, only here and there rising into 

 lofty cones, and yet the whole may be produced by true vol- 

 canic action. In this manner the greater part of Java has been 



B 



