Notice of Active and Extinct Volcanos. 299 



u The fire and columns of flame continued to rage with unaba- 

 ted fury, until the darkness, caused by the quantity of falling 

 matter, obscured it about eight P. M. Stones at this time fell 

 very thick at Sang'ir, some of them as large as two fists, but gen- 

 erally not larger than walnuts. Between nine and ten P. M. 

 ashes began to fall, and soon after, a violent whirlwind ensued, 

 which blew down nearly every house in the village of Sang'ir, 

 carrying the alaps, or roofs, and light parts away with it. In 

 the port of Sang'ir adjoining Sambawa, its effects were much 

 more violent, tearing up by the roots the largest trees, and carry- 

 ing them into the air, together with men, horses, cattle, and what- 

 ever else came within its influence. (This will account for the 

 immense number of floating trees seen at sea.) The sea rose 

 nearly twelve feet higher thari it had ever been known to do 

 before, and completely spoiled the only small spots of rice land 

 in Sang'ir, sweeping away houses and every thing within its 

 reach. The whirlwind lasted about an hour. No explosions 

 were heard till the whirlwind had ceased, at about eleven A. M. 

 From midnight till the evening of the 11th, they continued 

 without intermission ; after that time their violence moderated, 

 and they were heard only at intervals, but the explosions did not 

 cease entirely till the 15th of July. Of all the villages round 

 Tomboro, Tempo, containing about forty inhabitants, is the only 

 one remaining. In Pekate no vestige of a house is left : twen- 

 ty-six of the people, who were at Sumbawa at the time, are the 

 whole of the population who have escaped. From the best en- 

 quiries there were certainly not fewer than twelve thousand in- 

 dividuals in Tomboro and Pekate at the time of the eruption, of 

 whom five or six survive. The trees and herbage of every de- 

 scription, along the whole of the north and west of the penin- 

 sula, have been completely destroyed, with the exception of a 

 high point of land near the spot where the village of Tomboro 

 stood. At Sang'ir it is added the famine occasioned by this event 

 was so extreme, that one of the rajah's own daughters died of 

 starvation." 



" In the Island of Timor, the volcano of the peak served, like 

 that of Stromboli, as a sort of light-house, seen at more than 

 three hundred miles distance. In 1637, this mountain, during 

 a violent eruption dissappeared entirely : a lake at present takes 

 its place. 



" The Island of Daumer is also said to contain a volcano, and 

 Dampier in 1669 saw one burning between Timor and Ceram. 



" Goonung-Api,* one of the Banda Islands, contains an active 



* It appears from Marsden's Sumatra that this word signifies in the Malay 

 language volcano. 



