Connecticut western news., 1883-09-05
JAVA'S CANOPY OF FIRE
DEADLY RAIN FROM TWO-THIRDS OF HER FORTY-FIVE VOLCANOES.
Towns and villages Overwhelmed by the Lava or the Sea-ThOusands of Lives DestrOyed-The EruptiOns Still in Pro- gress.

eruptions in that island are much more serious than at first indicated. The dis turbances began on the Island of Kra- katoa, in the Strait of Sunda, about if teen miles off the coast of Java. The deep rumblings were distinctly audible at Sura- kerta and Batavia, about fotty-ive and twenty two miles off respectively. Little alarm was felt at first, but within few hours showers of stones began to fall at Jogjakerta, Sourabaya, and Sam | arang. All through the night showers
 of red hot rocks and ashes fell; making complete darkness in all these towns. | In Batavia there was an occasional fall,
 and it was difficult to keep the street | lights burning in the European quarter. By the next morning all communication l with Anier was cut off, all the bridges
 having been destroyed by the descend | ing rock and ashes and the road rendered impossible.
 The first eruptions were on Saturday
 night. On Sunday morning the distur-
 bance had extended beneath the waters
 of the strait, and they were soon boiling
 and hissing violently, while great waves dashed upon the Javanese shores, and
 the temperature of the sea went up
 nearly twenty degrees. Even as far
 away from the original point of distur-
 bance as Madura, more than 500 miles, | the furious waves were lashed into mountains of foam as they came rolling in.
 The Gunung Tengger has not had an
 CT rIption before since the year 1S8O, when an extent of land seventeen miles long and seven broad was completely
 covered with the white sulphurous mud so peculiar to the eruptions of Java. The peak of Gunung Tengger is 6,000 feet above the sea, and the monumentt flame on top of this made a scene of
 wonderful grandeur. Every moment huge boulder at @ red or white heat
 would be hurled from Tengger's crater
 with terrific force, and, after going hundreds of feet into the air, would fall
 back with whirr, crashing through the thatched roof of some Chinese fisher
 mans hut or crushing beneath its huge
 mass the body of some native peasant.
 Fissure after Assure appeared in the sides of the mountains, and here and
 there in the valleys there came great yawning chasms. On the elevated plains of Kediri and Bandong the show
 CTS of stones, mud, and lava were not so frequent as in the lower portions of the island, but were still destructive. Much of the northern portion of the
 island, which was covered with tracts of forests, was soon in one great blaze.
 The red-hot vomitings from the craters had set the trees on fire, and the giants of the woods fell one after another, like so many sheaves of wheat before gale As the eruptions increased in frequency and violence the disturbance of the
 waters surrounding the barren coast be- came more and more violent Here the
 waves rushed in terrific force up the steep, rocky incline, breaking up on the overhanging crags and receding rapidly, leaving a lava flow cooled just at the moment when 1t was about to fall over precipice, and there remaining, quickly hardened by contact with the waters, and forming distinct strata of black and bright red, purple and brown, all thrown about in the most eccentric masses, while huge peaks of basalt rose att ire. quent intervals,
 There the waves came whelmlng over a marshy plain along the shore, suddenly engulfng a hamlet of fshermen's rude houses, and, turning suddenly back, swept away almost every vestige of what a moment before had been @ scene of bustling activity. What a few hours be- fore were fertile valleys, covered with fourishing plantations of coffee, rice, sugar, indigo, or tobacco, the staples of the island, were now but mud, stone, and lava-covered fields of destruction and ruin. Probably not a single crop in Java wilt be saved.
 At the entrance to Batavia was large group of houses extending along the shore and occupied by Chinamen. This portion of the city was entirely swept away, and of the twenty-five thousand Chinese who lived on this swampy plain 1t is hardly probable that more than five thousand managed to save their lives. They stuck to their homes till the waves came that washed them away, fearing the torrents of the flame and the lava of the interior more than the torrents of water. Of the three thousand five hun dred Europeans and Americans in Bata- via perhaps eight hundred perished. It is impossible to make any estimate of the great pecuniary loss. Many of the bazaars in the higher parts of the city were demolished. The Exchange and the military hospitals suffered great damage.
 At Anier the European and American quarter was first overwhelmed by rocks, mud and lava from the crater, and then the waters came up and swallowed the ruins, leaving nothing to mark the site, and causing the loss of somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 lives of the inhabi- tants and those who tried to find a re- fuge there.
 Bantam, once prosperous native city, but practically abandoned by Europeans many years ago, was entirely covered by the water, and there must have been from 200 to ], 800 people drowned there. The island of Serang, just off the coast, was completely inundated, and not soul remains on it to tell the tale of dis. aster and death.
 At Cheribon there was no great flood of waters, but the loss of life and pro- perty by the falling of rocks and the flow of lava must have been considerable.
 Buitenzorg suffered very seriously, as did Samarang, Jogjakerta, Sourakerta and Sourabaya, while the meagre reports from the lesser towns indicate that their loss was as great in proportion. The Thousand Temples" at Brambaman were very much damaged, and some of them destroyed. Some of the domes of the noted temple of Borobodo were crushed in by huge falling rocks.
 While there can be no accurate esti- mate formed at present of the loss of life, it must be apparent, when it is con- sidered that the island has population of more than 1O,O0O,O00, that the death list will foot far up into the thousands. At the last advices, the eruptions were continuing, although their violence had abated somewhat, and it is feared that the end of the disaster will show it to have been one of the most frightful ever known in the history of it's kind