VESUVIUS IN ERUPTION 73 



acrid, charged with incandescent sand, and rolling along 

 like a liquid rather than a vapour. It burnt up the 

 town of St. Pierre and its inhabitants and the shipping 

 in the harbour. In the eruption of the volcano of 

 St. Vincent in 181 2 three million tons of ashes were 

 projected on to the Bahamas Islands, 100 miles distant, 

 besides a larger quantity which fell elsewhere. The 

 great explosion at Krakatoa, lasting two days, blew an 

 island of 1400 ft. high, into the air. A good deal of 

 it was projected as excessively fine needlelike particles 

 of pumice with such force as to carry it up thirty miles 

 into the upper regions of the atmosphere, where it was 

 carried by air currents all over the world, causing the 

 " red sunsets " of the following year. The sky over 

 Batavia, 100 miles distant, was darkened at midday so 

 completely that lamps had to be used — as I heard from 

 my brother who was there at the time. The explosions 

 were heard in Mauritius, 3000 miles away. A sea wave 

 50 ft. high was set going by the submarine disturbance, 

 and reaching Java and neighbouring islands inundated 

 the land and destroyed 36,000 persons. This wave 

 travelled in reduced size over a vast tract of the ocean, 

 and was observed and recorded at Cape Horn, 7800 miles 

 distant from its seat of origin. 



