986 



the year 1608 (in the latter half of June or the beginning of May), 

 although some time before their publication the report, upon which 

 their communication was founded, proved to be false ^). It came to 

 pass in the following way. In the original edition of the work of 

 A. Fr. Prevost ■) we are told that the said eruption was witnessed 

 on the second voyage of Paui>us van Caerden. However, the voyager 

 states in his narrative that the volcano that was active late in the 

 evening (during the first watch) of the J 8^'' of July, was the peak 

 of Ternate '). Even Prevost's rectification in the Hague-edition of 

 his work: "Dans l'édition de Paris il y a Tidor, ce qui est une 

 faute" was of no avail, for Alexis Perrey had copied the erroneous 

 information from the first edition and communicated at the same 

 time the true fact regarding the eruption of Ternate ''). From his 

 notes both communications passed into the above-mentioned works 

 of Mercalli and Schneider. 



Violent shocks of earthquake were felt in Ternate and in Tidore 

 on the 14^'' of July 1855. In the latter islan(i 25 houses collapsed, 

 which cost the lives of 24 men, while four more were killed *) by 

 blocks of rock sliding from the Dojado ') hill. 



Subsequently it was reported in 1856 that: "prognostics had been 

 observed of an eruption of the peak in the near future"'). What 

 these indications were, we are still to learn ; at all events the anti- 

 cipated eruption stayed away. The landslip that had occurred in 

 June 1857 north of the capital Soa Siu*) was not generated by 

 volcanic activity any moie than the torrent of mud of the 6''' of 

 September 1866, that rose at the slope of the peak above the campong 



^) A. WiCHMANN. Der Wawani auf Amboina und seine angeblichen Ausbriiche. 

 Tijdschr. Nederl. Aardr. Gen. (2) 16. 1899, p. 16. 



2) Histoire générale des Voyages 8. Paris 1750, p. 385. 



') Loffelijcke Voyagie op Oost-Indien. Begin ende Voortgang van de Vereenigde 

 Geociroyeerde Oost Indische Compagnie 2. Amsterdam 1646, N". 14, p. 47. — 

 F. Valentijn. Oud en Nieuw Oost Indien 1. 2. Dordrecht — Amsterdam 1724, p. 5. 



*) Histoire générale des Voyages 10. La Haye 1753, p. 385. 



*) Aardbevingen in den Indischen Archipel. Natuurk. Tijdschr. Ned. Ind. 9. 

 Batavia 1855, p. 519. — P. van der Crab (De Moiuksche Eilanden. Batavia 

 1862, p. 290) reports that 32 persons were killed by the sliding rocks F. S. A. 

 DE Glercq (Bijdragen tot de kennis der residentie Ternate. Leiden 1890, p. 69, 

 aant. 1) erroneously fixes the date on the 6th of Sept. 1866. Van der Crab's 

 work had already appeared in 1862. 



C) The Dojado hill is situated on the south-east base of the Maftatu about 

 1,6 km. south of Akè Sahu. 



7) Fragment uit een reisverhaal. Tijdschr. v. Ned. Indie 1856 1, p. 425. 



8) J. H. Tobias. Aardstorting op Tidore. Natuurk. Tijdschr. Ned. Indie 15. 

 Batavia 1858, p. 852-358. 



