NA JURE 



457 



THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1883 



SCIEXTtFIC ASPECTS OF THE JAVA 

 CATASTROPHE 



CAUTION and scepticism, which are necessary to the 

 student of even- branch of natural science, ought to be 

 the especial attributes of the vulcanologist and seismologist. 

 No other natural phenomena so strikingly affect the 

 imagination or so powerfully excite the fancy as do the 

 volcanic outburst and the earthquake. These catastrophes 

 usually occur too with such startling suddenness and with 

 such an entire absence of warning that the witnesses are 

 not unnaturally paralysed by fear and terror. Under 

 such circumstances the wildest and most improbable 

 stories are received and circulated with easy credence, 

 and no attempt is made to separate the real from the 

 imaginary. 



Illustrations of these remarks might be adduced in con- 

 nection with each of the great subterranean disturbances 

 which have taken place during recent years Thus the 

 accounts received of the earthquake of Agram stated that 

 fissures had opened in the ground fro n which smoke and 

 flames issued and along which volcanic cones were thrown 

 up. The report of the Commission appointed by the 

 Hungarhn Government to investigate the facts of the 

 case upon the spot proves conclusively that these stories 

 had no other foundation than the emission of small jets 

 of water and the formation by them of sand-cones, a phe- 

 nomenon frequently witnessed during earthquake shocks. 

 An article in the last number of this journal upon the 

 recent earthquake in Ischia shows that similar dis- 

 crepancies exist between the first hastily-published ac- 

 counts and the soberer testimony of care c ul observers. 



In the case of the Java catastrophe, hovever, there 

 appears to have been at least one attempt to hoax the 

 newspaper-reading public by deliberately manufactured 

 accounts of the event. A detailed statement purporting 

 to c:>mc from an eye-witness, and telegraphed by way of 

 America, was published in many of the daily papers. 

 The circumstances recorded in this statement would have 

 been startling indeed had they been true, but, as a writer in 

 the Scotsman has already pointed out, the account bears 

 too manifestly on its face abundant proofs of its want 

 of genuineness. 



Setting aside these fictitious accounts, and making 

 every allowance for the exaggeration naturally resulting 

 from terror, and the difficulty which under the circum- 

 stances of the case there must be of obtaining reliable 

 information, sufficient remains to prove that the recent 

 catastrophe resulted from one of the grandest and most 

 destructive volcanic outbursts which have occurred in 

 modern times. 



The scene of this outburst was at what is at the present 

 day probably the focus of the mostintense volcanic activity 

 upon the face of the globe. The Island of Java contains 

 no less than forty-six great volcanic mountains, nearly 

 one half of which have been in activity during historical 

 times. This chain of volcanoes is continued in the 

 southern part of Sumatra. Since the colonisation of 

 these islands several volcanic eruptions on the very 

 grandest scale have taken place, at points not very distant 

 Vol. xxviii. — No. 724 



from the scene of the recent catastrophe. In 1772 oc- 

 curred the great eruption of Papandayang, when the 

 whole upper part of the mountain was blown away, 

 leaving a vast crater fifteen miles long by six miles broad. 

 The quantity of material ejected during this eruption was 

 so great that, according to Dr. Junghuhn, an area of seven 

 miles radius around the mountain was in a single night 

 covered with scoriae and ashes to the depth of nearly 

 fifty feet. Forty nitive villages were overwhelmed, and 

 3000 persons perishei. In 1S22 the neighbouring volcano 

 of Galunggong was in eruption, and 114 villages were 

 buried beneath the scoria? and ashes, while the destruc- 

 tion of hu;nan life was so great that more than 4000 killed 

 were recorded in the official reports. 



According to the most reliable accounts received up to 

 | the present time, the recent outbreak would appear to 

 ! have been far more fatal to human life than either of its 

 : predecessors, and the most potent agent of destruction in 

 ' this, as in so many other cases, would seem to have been 

 ! the great sea-wave produced by the earthquike-shock, 

 rather than the showers of materials ejected from the 

 volcanoes 



Divested of their marvellous accompaniments, and read 

 by the light of modern vulcanologic science, the accounts 

 already received of this great catastrophe seem to prove 

 the occurrence of the following events : — First, the ejection 

 of enormous quantities of fragment try materials ; se- 

 condly, the production of great changes in the form and 

 outlines of the volcanic Island of Krakatoa ; thirdly, the 

 throwing up of a line of new volcanic cones on a fissure 

 opened in the sea-bed between Java and Sumatra ; and. 

 fourthly, the occurrence of one or more earthquake shocks, 

 giving rise to forced sea-waves of great destructiveness. 



The quantity of materials ejected during these eruptions 

 is proved by two facts recorded in the accounts already 

 published : firstly, the widespread and long-continued 

 darkness, doubtless produced by the clouds of finely com- 

 minuted dust carried away from the volcano by the wind; 

 ana 1 , secondly, by the vast mass of scoriae which seems 

 to have accumulated upon and floated over many portions 

 o c the surface of the surrounding seas. 



Concerning the extent and nature of the changes of the 

 features of Krakatoa we must await further and reliable 

 evidence. As in the case of Papandayang, the destruc- 

 tion of the volcano was doubtless primarily due to the 

 eruptive action, which truncated the cone and formed a 

 gigantic crater, and whether or not this action was accom- 

 panied by subsidence, whereby the disappearance of the 

 island was consummated, it remains for further investiga- 

 tions to determine. It is well, however, to bear in mind 

 that many reputed cases of the submergence of islands 

 have on further examination resolved themselves into the 

 removal of materials by explosive action, just as most 

 instances of the elevation of volcanic islands above the 

 sea-level have been doubtless due to the piling up of the 

 materials above the level of the waves. 



The position and relations of the new line of volcanic 

 cones must be determined by the surveying vessels which 

 will doubtless be sent to the spot so soon as it is con- 

 sidered safe to do so. Fortunately a number of admirable 

 charts of these seas have been constructed by the hydro- 

 graphers of this and other countries, and by a comparison 

 of these with the new charts which will now have to be 



X 



