Arizona weekly enterprise., 1889-01-05
KRAKAT0A'S ERUPTION.
SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION OF THE
 NOTED VOLCANIC EXPLOSION.
Preliminary Performances of the Volcano. When the Crisis Came-Noise of the Great Crash-Effects of the Explosion-Optica Phenomena.


 of seven miles, and some of the matter elected was carried as far as 300 miles be- | fore 1t descended to the earth. This erup | ton was accompanied by noises which in | Batavia 100 miles away, sounded like the | booming of cannon, while doors and win dows were shaken The force of this out break soon subsided, and such things arc so common in that part of the world that little attention was paid to it. On May 28 an excursion party from Batavia visited the neighborhood and obtained a photo graph of the mountain as it then appeared In the middle of June another crater opened and the dense pail of vapor that had been hanging over the region was perceptibly increased. After that tho island became every day the scene of three principal and eleven smaller volcanic fires visible upon it.
 WHEN THE CRISIS CAME
 The climax came on the 27th of August. On the afternoon before 1t could be seen that e crisis was approaching. The story as told from the logs of various ships that were in the neighborhocd shows that fre- quent explosions then occurred, and that the air was filled with vapor, pumice and dust, illuminated by glow from the vol cano below, and by continuous flashes of lightning from above. The sound of fre- quent explosions was heard at great dis tanceS, and waves were started that were felt hundreds of miles away.
 The investigations of the committee have proved conclusively that these erup- tions of the afternoon of Aug. 28, by shattering the island and tearing away great fragments from it down to below the level of the sea, were the direct cause of the terrific outburst of the following morning. by which the island was nearly destroyed, and the vast tidal wave started that overwhelmed all the islands for hundred miles about. Through the breaches made by these explosions in the wslls of the crGters the sea rushed h tor rents. The first effect, as when dirt CT stones gre thrown into the mouth Of gsyser, WAS to deaden the violence of the eruption, and produce a season of corn- pGTati7e calm. This lasted through the night of the 2Gth anl well along into the morning Of tho next day. But the te.Ti ble energy thus s2othered WAS merely sup pressed fer time. It cccuraulsted deep in the earth beneath the small sea that quickly filled up the crater above, and the longer it was confined the greater bo- came it's power. At 5:90 o'clock in the morning came the first outbreak, but 1t was not enough; the water poured in faster than the power below could throw it out, and the forces of fire below were held in subiection by the sea. There was another outburst ct 6:44 o'clock, but this, too, the sec subdued, driving the beast of the volcano back once more into its sub tcrrapean caverns, where it ragged and fumed for nearly four hours. Then. at 10:02 o'clock, 1t burst out with an awful -1o1o %1a0 l,al sv,x ryec i hundred feet high, that rolled on for thousands of miles before they wholly subsided.
 NOISE OF THE GREAT CRASH.
 The noise of this last great crash of the conflict between the forces of the water and of fire was heard over an area equal
 ing one thirteenth of the surface of the globe. People a thousand miles away
 thought vessel in distress was firing
 minute guns and sent out ship to hel
 aid. At Ceylon, 2,000 miles away. people thought that ships were practicing witt
 their heavy guns somewhere in the neigh
 bcrhood, and even as far as Rodriguez
 5000 miles from KrakStoa, 0 sound WE.
 heard as of the roar of distant artillery
 More than this, the air waves which ac
 companied the sound spread after tn
 sound itself had become inaudible ant
 delicate instruments at various obserya
 tories and other stations in all parts 0
 the world recorded the passage of unac
 countable atmospheric impulses, not once
 but time after time until it is a scientih
 cally ascertained and proven fact that tn
 air wave from the explosion passed sevel
 times around the world before 1t ocean , 50 faint that it produced no effect upol
 the instruments that record such incidents
 At Batavia, 100 miles distant, window
 were blown in, gas put out, 6 gasomste
 lifted from it's well, and even walls wer
 cracked merely by the vibrations of the aiI
 The sea waves hurled out from the vol : cano in ell directions were more disas } trous, If less far reaching, than the ai
 waves. Thirty three miles from the vol cnno some of tEo waves wSze 135 fec kigh. Towns, villages sud lighthouse } were swept away. A r2a of war we carried up the Telolz Belong valley nezrl two miles i1l2ad and left stranded thirt feet above tho ssa level. The wave was } very perceptiblo one all tho way ac:os l the Indian ocean, and at Ceylon, Nats and the Cape of Good Hope it's passag l was made matter of record long befoi anything was known of the explosion : EXPECTS OF THE EEPLCsIoN. In the immediate vicinity of the islan
 the ef5Sct or the eGpl02lon was almost conceivable Two-thirds of the island ( KrakarQa and the whole Of neighborir island disappeared entirely. Lang lsial, :. was increased by an addition to Its nort!
 ern end, and Verlaten Island was enlarge
 to three times its former dimensions. IT
 mass of matter which was blown aws
 from Krakatoa has been calculated
 300 ,000, GOO, GOO cubic feet. One of the il cidentsl effects of tae explosion was u r exposure of e magnificent section of Il t island, nearly 2,000 feet high, showir s admirably the formation of the interior : crater.
 F The most curious part of the report r that devoted to the optical phenomer ]. that followed the eruption, including u 6 remarkable colored sunsets in all par : of the globe, which were almost certain 0 the result of it. The Hon. Rollo Russe , and Mir. Douglas Archibald had charge
 the preparation of the parts of tie T
 port devoted to this subject. They four
 that at the time of the explosion so gre :. 8 mass of dust and vapor was throw . into the air to heights estimated at fro ,. 12 to g miles that for 150 miles arour l darkness prevailed at midday. Much " this matter fell quickly to the cart y Io masses of pumice stone covering the s thickly for a long distance about, al were carried by the ocean currents to { <. parts of the world, so that even yet tn, e are being washed ashore in places f
 remote from the straits of Sunda.-Ne