34 



Bland and Verlaten Eiland. The first of these lies north of Krakatao 

 at a distance of somewhat less than 3 km., the other one north-west 

 of the main island and about 6 km. distant from Zwarte Hoek. Both 

 are smaller and much lower than Krakatao; the top of Lang Eiland 

 reaches 147 m. above sea-level whilst Verlaten Eiland rises up to 

 182 m. Both islands, not as the remaining part of Krakatao partly 

 sheltered by a mountain-cone, were fully exposed to the fury of the 

 eruption; most probably both were entirely covered with a very thick 

 (up to 50 m.) layer of ashes and pumice, and, to my knowledge, 

 there are no indications that the original soil soon has been laid 

 bare; afterwards this has happened ') locally. Therefore I consider it 

 quite possible, though not irrefutably proven, that in contradistinction 

 to Krakatao the old flora of Lang Eiland and Verlaten Eiland was 

 entirely destroyed by suffocation and heat. I mentioned already that 

 Treub in 1 886, from his ship, observed rather numerous plants on 

 Krakatao but on the two other islands saw no vestige of a vegetation. 

 The first botanists who visited Lang Eiland were Boerlage 

 and Burck who in September 1896 made a trip to this island 

 then already for some time inhabited ' 2 ) by some officials of the 

 Topographical Survey Service and their native underlings; Boerlage 

 found there a rather rich vegetation. Of the situation on Lang Eiland 

 in 1896 Mulder gives the description cited in chapter V. A fine 

 picture of part of the same island 10 years afterwards is printed in 

 Jaarverslag van den Topographischen Dienst in Nederlandsch-lndie 

 (Year-book of the Topographical Survey Service in the Dutch 

 Indies) 1908. 



If one is right in assuming that in 1883 the original vegetation 

 of Lang Eiland and Verlaten Eiland was entirely destroyed, these 

 islands might have given a much more solid base (but no more than 

 that) for investigations after the restoration of a vegetation destroyed 

 by an eruption, than Krakatao where part of the old flora may have 

 survived the catastrophe. Both islands have, like Krakatao, the in- 

 convenience of embarrassing the botanical researches by the presence 

 of innumerable very deep precipitous ravines; over Krakatao they 

 have the advantage of being smaller (resp. 3 km 2 , and HVa km 2 .) 

 and by far not so high. When studying the development of the new 

 flora of these two islands, allowances must be made for the very 



1 ) Cf. Hugo Cool, Krakatau in 1908, pp. 10, 12. 



2 ) Not Verlaten Eiland as Ernst wrongly says [Neue Flora Vulkaninsel Krakatau 

 (1907), p. 38J See also Tijdschr. Kon. Ned. AardrijksU. Genootschap, XIV (1897) 

 p. 119. 



