286 



Let me conclude this paper by comparing the litterature on the 

 revegetation of Krakatao to ,,the colossal skeleton brontosaur" some 

 American author speaks of, ,,that stands fifty-seven feet long and 

 ,,sixteen feet high, the awe and admiration of all the world, the 

 ,,stateliest skeleton that exists on the planet. There was one small 

 ,,bone and the rest was built out of plaster of Paris. If the builders 

 ,,had not run short of this stuff the monster would have become 

 ,,much bigger". 



I have tried to find the very few bones in these wagon-loads 

 of rubbish and will finish by stating once more, that : 



1. // is not at all proven that by the eruption of 1883 all vegetable 



life on Krakatao was destroyed. 



2. Even if this could be proven, we know with the exception of the 



littoral flora nothing at all about the manner in which the 

 new vegetation has appeared. Only guesses without scientific 

 value have been made but no reliable observations nor experiments. 



3. Therefore the Krakatao-problem can neither now nor in the future 



either be posed or solved and is of no importance at all for 

 Botanical Science. 



Pasuruan (Java), April 1929. 



