THOUGHTS ABOUT KRAKATOA. 335 



that they produced on the shores of the Straits of Sunda. 

 Captain Wharton shows that the waves, as they deluged 

 the land, must have been fifty feet, or, in one well- 

 authenticated case, seventy- two feet high. It was, of 

 course, these vast floods which caused the fearful loss of 

 life. The third illustrative fact concerns the fate of a 

 man-of-war, the Berouw. This unhappy vessel was borne 

 from its normal element and left high and dry in Sumatra, 

 a mile and three-quarters inland, and thirty feet above 

 the level of the sea. 



Such incidents are not so unusual as the exquisite series 

 of optical phenomena which has made most of the nations 

 on the earth spectators in some degree of the wonders of 

 Krakatoa. Resounding as were the crashes of the explo- 

 sions, they still subsided thousands of miles to the east of 

 Great Britain, and though the great aerial vibrations 

 tingled to and fro through the air over every part of 

 this globe, yet they were not perceptible to our unaided 

 senses. But now we are to consider a splendid series of 

 phenomena which scorned limitations of distance, and 

 which obtruded their glories on our notice for weeks and 

 even months together. 



One of the most striking maps that the Report of the 

 Royal Society contains is that which illustrates the pro- 

 gress of the main sky-phenomena from August 26 (even- 

 ing) to September 9 1883. I doubt if the skies have ever 

 presented to our vision, within atmospheric limits, a more 

 singular series of phenomena than those which are most 

 clearly depicted within the modest limits of this little map. 

 (See Fig. 20,) Let me endeavour from the series of maps, 

 of which this is one, as well as from the abundant body 



