152 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
fugitives may Btill be seen there. In latter times the last existing 
worshippers of Siva inhabited the crater of the volcano called Tengger, 
in the centre of which there is a cone of eruption in full activity. 
The volcanos of Java lie nearly in a line coinciding with the prin- 
cipal axis of the island, and those of Sumatra form a line parallel 
to the former. "When an eruption occurs, torrents, not of lava, 
but of mud, roll down the sides of the mountain ; when such a 
torrent meets with an obstacle, the mud generally accumulates on one 
spot, and there forms a hillock ; it is thus that the bases of these 
volcanos are often seen studded with thousands of those incipient 
mountains. Sometimes the eruption is dry, or consists only of ashes, 
as is often the case with the Eamongon and the Semerso. The former 
volcano detonates once every ten or fifteen minutes, the latter at inter- 
vals of about three hours. 
The mud which seems to replace lava in the Javanese volcanos 
derives its origin from the materials of the mountains themselves, whose 
rocky structures are violently acted upon by the hot acidulated water 
and the acid vapours emitted from the crater. The latter are extremely 
abundant at Java, and destroy all kinds of rocks. 
In June, 1822, the Gelung-Gung volcano broke forth in violent 
eruption, amidst earthquakes and subterranean thunder ; the inhabi- 
tants of the plain were startled out of their sieste, at about noon, by a 
violent report, which was heard from one extremity of the island to 
the other. An immense column of black smoke was immediately seen 
rising in the air that completely darkened the sky ; volumes of cinders 
soon fell like a burning rain, the mountain sunk considerably into the 
earth, and from its fissured sides streamed forth torrents of hot sulphu- 
reous water and boiling mud, transforming, in an incredibly short space 
of time, villages, forests, and rice-fields into a streaming lake, on which 
trees, fragments of dwellings, and dead-bodies of men or other animals 
were seen floating along. What a picture of devastation ! Another 
awful eruption of the same kind took place on the 8th and 12 th of 
October. Beudant assures us that in 1 772 the highest mountain of Java, 
the Papandayan volcano, com_phtelij disappeared * — swallowed up, as it 
were, in a lake of mud, together with forty villages and their inhabitants. 
{To bi', contimied.) 
Dr Junghuhn and Mr. G. P. Scrope both consider the truncation of Papan- 
dayan to have been due to explosive eruptions, not to engulfment. See Journal 
Qeol. Soc., Vol. XII., p. 331.— Ed. (iEOLOoisr. 
