S90 
Mr Stewart on a Volcanic Eruption 
Trees of great size (many from sixty to eighty feet long) were 
thrown into the sea ; they seemed to have been scorched, and to 
have had their small branches and roots torn off. Some of those 
trees I saw sticking in the mud near the shores of the bay of 
Beema, with one end uppermost. 
Some of the houses of the town of Beema were materially in- 
jured by the discharges from the mountain. 
It was reported by Captain Eatwell, of the Honourable Com- 
pany’s cruizer Benares, that the earthquake attending the erup- 
tion had raised a bank on which that ship struck, in a place where 
the Honourable Company's cruizer Ternate, some months before 
it, had floated in safety. 
The people living on the peninsula formed by the mountain 
had traded much in horses, of which their country produced a 
very good small breed. Thousands of them and their horses 
were, according to all accounts, destroyed by the eruption : the 
vegetation was ruined, and multitudes of the people obliged to 
emigrate in order to obtain subsistence. 
I understand that at the town of Tanbora, situated at the bot- 
tom of the west side of the mountain, the sea has made a per- 
manent encroachment, burying that town to the depth of three 
fathoms. 
Three distinct streams of a dark-coloured lava, according to 
the report of the people on the island, issued from the hill ; of 
these I could observe something as I passed going to Beema in 
July following. One stream on the east side of Tanbora seem- 
ed to be emitting smoke and vapour even at that time. 
During the darkness, the sounds before described were parti- 
cularly loud and frequent. At times, indeed, they were so loud 
as to produce momentary earthquakes of no inconsiderable vio- 
lence. 
All this, while there was no wind in any direction in the 
neighbourhood of the mountain, or at some distance from it ; 
yet the sea was so violently agitated as to wash away some 
houses near it on Sumbawa, and to throw on the beach near the 
towm of Beema several large trading boats that had been at an- 
chor in the bay. 
One of the most remarkable circumstances of tlie eruption is 
the experience of its effects at immense distances. At Samanap, 
