12 THE WORLDS LUMBER ROOM. 



having been carried up to great heights, remain suspended 

 for weeks, and even months. After the great eruptions 

 of Skaptar, in 1783, Iceland was obscured for months by 

 fine dust, which was carried over England and the north 

 of Europe, producing fogs, and lurid sunrises and sunsets. 



During the great eruption in Java, which reached its 

 climax at the end of August, 1883, volcanic matter was 

 ejected in enormous quantities, and to a height which it 

 is impossible to determine. Millions of tons of matter 

 were hurled into the air, enveloping the whole district for 

 many miles in utter darkness ; and although the heavier 

 particles, of course, soon fell to the earth, quantities of 

 fine dust were carried into the upper regions by the tre- 

 mendous upward current, which always exists in the neigh- 

 bourhood of the equator. To what height the air brought 

 near to the equator by the trade-winds is ordinarily carried 

 we do "not know, neither do we know certainly what be- 

 comes of it, but it frequently travels at the rate of one 

 hundred and fifty miles an hour, and presuming it to have 

 done so in this instance, carrying the volcanic dust with 

 it, it would, says Mr. Norman Lockyer, have reached various 

 parts of the world exactly at the time when attention was 

 first drawn to the wonderful magnificence and duration of 

 the sunset glow, and to other unusual appearances in the 

 sky during the autumn and winter of 1883. 



These remarkable sunsets and sunrises began in the 

 Mauritius on the 28th of August, and were at once believed 

 to be caused by sunlight passing through fine dust ; and 

 from that time for several months they were constantly 

 observed, now in one place, now in another, until they had 



