224 EAllTIlyUAKE OF KRAKATAU. 



and about twenty-six miles from Anjer, was the unin- 

 habited island of Krakatau, only five miles in len^h 

 and three in breadth, culminating in a peak rising 

 2,750 feet above the sea, which, in the month of 

 August, 1883, was visited by a stupendous volcanic 

 eruption, creating impenetrable darkness for hundreds 

 of square miles around, and, in its effects, reducing the 

 island to a fraction of its original size. It is curious to 

 note the flow of pumice-stone thus released : its progress 

 during the first five months after the occurrence must 

 have been slow, for in January, 1 884, the " Marlborough" 

 ss. passed through a flux of the debris 320 miles N.E. 

 of Krakatau on her way to Soerabaya ; after that a 

 strong easterly current seems to have wafted it across 

 towards the African coast, where it positively littered 

 the beach in many places between Zanzibar and Natal, 

 as witnessed by Sir John Kirk in the month of June, 

 and by Captain Reeves, of the barque " Umvoti," in 

 September, 1884, having thus drifted a distance of 

 about 4,500 miles in thirteen months ; numerous 

 records also prove that the disturbance caused by the 

 velocity of the waves in consequence of the eruption 

 even reached the coasts of France and England. 



Java, lying between S. Lat. 5° 52' and 8° 46', and E. 

 Long, 105° 10' and 114°, 35', is exceedingly hilly, the 



