i^\RT 2.1 Mallei: Mud volcanoes of Rdmri ami Chednba. 199 
to Calcutta; it flickered several times as if the tire had been got under, and after 
lasting 15 or 20 minutes (say) suddenly went out. Various were the conjectures ; 
I thought it was the reflection of the sun from below the horizon, but the sudden 
light of flame was too brilliant and unsteady to be the sun’s light; electricity in 
the cloud was stated to be the cause, but this is not the season foi' such a cause : 
‘a ship on tire,’ said many; but this morning the prevailing opinion is, that 
a volcanic eruption has taken place 20 miles out to sea, similar to what I reported 
as having taken place near Cheduba. The argument against its having been 
a shi]} on tire is, that the flame showing so brilliant and so great a light could not 
be so suddenly extinguished as this was, the dark bank of clouds may have been 
formed of the smoke of the volcano.” 
The light was also seen by Captain Siddons and others from Akyab, and from 
the H. C. schooner “ ‘Sp?/,’’ then off the As.sirghar shoal (about 30 miles north¬ 
west of Akyab), the Commander of which ship saw “ five different times large 
masses of fires thrown up,” which he sujiposed to be a volcanic eruption. It is 
scarcely open to doubt, however, that what was seen from the ‘"Spy,” at least, 
was the reflection of the fire from the bank of the clouds alluded to by Captain 
Williams, and not the flames themselves. The bearings taken from the above 
different places showed the position of the fire to have been about 7 miles S. | B. 
from the south end of the Western Baranga, the distance from Kyauk Phyu 
being 31 nautical miles, from Akyab 28, and from the Assirghar shoal 57. As 
Kyauk Phyu and Akyab are both on alhrviiim, it is not j)robable that the observ¬ 
ers in any case were more than 20 feet or so above the sea. Taking, therefore, 
the curvature of the earth (with refraction) into account, the flames to have been 
themselves visible at the above distances must, with reference to each position 
respectively, have exceeded 500, 400, and 2,000 feet in height!.' 
Soundings were made within a few days of the occurrence, but no difference 
from the soundings laid dowm on the chart was discovered. 
An eruption, on a compai'atively small scale, which took place from one of 
the Kyauk Phyu volcanoes on the 25th of October 1846, was thus described by 
Major Williams ;—“About a quarter to 9 o’clock last night, we had an eruption 
of one of our volcanoes near the village of Chein Kroong,^ about three or four 
miles from this station, on the island of Ramri; it burst out suddenly with 
a slight noise, emitting a brilliant flame, which instantly went out, and ao'ain 
burst forth; this happened for fifteen or twenty times, when the flame burnt 
steadily, gradually diminishing, and disappeared altogether about daybreak, or 
a little before it, this morning: it rained heavily all the time. 
“The whole sky was illuminated brilliantly, and again suddenly everything 
was immersed in darkness during the flashes, and then sudden disappearance, 
which I can only compare to the effect, on a small scale, of a handful of oil, or any 
' Humboldt mentions an eruption from a mud volcano near Baku, when the flames flashed up 
to an extraordinary height for three hours, and another in the same region during which the flames 
rose so high that they could be seen at a distance of 24 miles (Kosmo.s I). It is stated by 
Eichwald that the eruptions there always terminate with a pouring out of naphtha (Edin New 
Phil. .lournal, XIV, 132). 
• Tsi Chang ? 
