874 Transactions.— Miscellaneous. 
successive explosions, and are exceedingly interesting. The air-wave 
following the 10.5 eruption seems to have travelled three and a quarter 
times round the world before it allowed the atmosphere to regain its normal 
condition ; journeying at the rate of 674 or 706 miles an hour according as 
it passed to the east or to the west, i.e., according as it was assisted or 
retarded by the upper currents of wind (Col. Strachey, Royal Society). 
Besides this “atmospheric shudder,” as Ellery graphically calls it, there 
were enormous sea-waves—tidal-waves as they are improperly called— 
formed by the tumbling-in of the burnt-out mountain, or the falling into the 
sea of vast bodies of ashes, or by submarine explosions or otherwise. These 
waves were, as you know, awfully destructive to human life—perhaps 
carried off 100,000 people. To show their foref and rapidity, I may state 
that they reached Geraldton in Western Australia so early as the 27th, 
Mongonui and Timaru, New Zealand, on the 29th, and Nelson on the 80th. 
Shortly afterwards they reached places more distant still, even the coast of 
France. Verbeek computes that 18 cubic kilometres—nearly twenty-five 
thousand million cubic yards—of solids, and more of gas, were ejected. The 
steam cloud rose to the height of 11,000 metres (nearly seven miles) even 
on 20th May, when the eruption was trifling, and probably to the height of 
20,000 (over thirteen miles) on the 27th. But naturally enough, nobody in 
the vicinity on that exciting day was sufficiently calm to note with accuracy 
such phenomena. Before the eruption the Island of Krakatoa contained 
834 square kilometres (nearly thirteen square miles), now it contains only 
10$ square kilometres, that is, less than one-third of the old area. It 
consisted of three large peaks, one of which was 2,500 feet high; the two 
smaller of these and a cleanly-cut half of the largest one have disappeared 
entirely, and the sea over the place where they were is now over 1,000 feet 
deep. The whole neighbourhood is changed. One island, Poelsche Hoedje, 
has vanished entirely. Others are trebled in size. Within a radius of 
15 kilometres (say nine miles) the ashes are 20 to 40 inches deep, and an 
area as large as Germany, Holland, and Belgium put together is covered to 
a less extent. A locality subject to visitations of this kind, with sixteen 
active voleanoes, some of them 12,000 feet high, and many more only quiet 
for a time, is well called * The Lid of Hell," and after such a visitation to 
any one part of the world, we need not wonder at all to see curious 
meteorological phenomena as a consequence, even in very distant places. 
But, as I have already pointed out, this eruption of Krakatoa was by no 
means the only outbreak through the earth’s crust during last year. That 
of Hecla on 26th March, and that of Alaska, were anything but insignificant. 
The latter especially must have resulted in the throwing up of a vast 
quantity of matter. The whole Alaskan peninsula was in volcanic activity. 
