CHAPTER X.
Volcanoes of Java—Papandayang—Mountain Ingulfed—Great Destruction of Life and Property—Galoen-gong—Destructive Eruption—Mount Merapia—Great Eruption, with Hurricane—Another, very destructive—Mud Volcano Crater of Tankuban-Prahu—Island of Sumbáwa—Volcano of Tomboro—Terrific Eruption—Timor—A Volcano quenches itself—Cleaving of Mount Machian—Sangir—Destructive Eruption—Bourbon.
One of the most marvellous volcanic regions in the world is that composed of the islands of the Malayan Archipelago in the Indian Ocean. They form a chain stretching from east to west, but curving up towards the north at the western extremity. The most easterly of the chain is Timor, the most westerly Sumatra.
The most interesting of the group is Java, which is almost entirely of volcanic origin, and contains no less than thirty-eight mountains of that conical form which indicates their having at one time or other been active volcanoes. Only a few of them, however, have been in activity in more recent times. The most remarkable eruption was that of the mountain named Papandayang, which occurred in 1772. During this convulsion the greater part of the mountain, which was formerly one of the largest in the island, was completely swallowed up in some great underground gulf.
On the night between the 11th and 12th of August of that year, the mountain appeared to be wholly enveloped in a remarkable luminous cloud. The inhabitants fled in consternation; but before they could all escape, the mountain began to totter, and the greater part of it tumbled down and disappeared. The crash with which it fell was dreadful, the noise resembling the discharge of volleys of artillery. Besides that part of the mountain which thus fell in, a large extent of ground in its neighbourhood was ingulfed. The space measured fifteen miles in length and six in breadth. The ground for many miles round this space was covered with immense quantities of ashes, stones, cinders, and other substances thrown out by the volcano. These were, on many parts of the surface, accumulated to the height of three feet; and even at the end of six weeks, the layers thus deposited retained so much heat as to render the mountain inaccessible. By this dreadful occurrence forty villages were destroyed, some ingulfed with the ground on which they stood, others buried under the loose materials which had been ejected. Not far short of three thousand of the inhabitants perished.
Another of the volcanoes of Java, called Galoen-gong, burst into eruption in 1822, commencing with a terrible explosion of stones, ashes, &c., followed by a stream of hot mud, which overspread a large tract of ground. This eruption proved still more fatal to human life, about four thousand persons having been destroyed.
So lately as September 1849, Mount Merapia, another volcano in this island, which had been supposed to be quite extinct, burst forth into an eruption, which lasted three days. It was accompanied by a violent hurricane. The bed of a river was filled up by the matter thrown out from the crater, and the destruction of property in crops, &c., was immense. Fortunately the inhabitants succeeded in making their escape, so that no lives were lost. A second eruption of this mountain however, in January 1864, was more disastrous, three hundred and fifty people having perished.
Java likewise contains a remarkable mud volcano. When viewed from a distance, there are seen to rise from it large volumes of vapour, like the spray from the billows dashing against a rocky shore, and there is heard a loud noise like distant thunder. On a nearer approach, the source of these phenomena is seen to be a hemispherical mound of black earth mixed with water, about sixteen feet in diameter, and which at intervals of a few seconds is pushed upwards by a force acting from beneath to a height of between twenty and thirty feet. It then suddenly explodes with a loud noise, scattering in every direction a quantity of black mud, which has a strong pungent smell resembling that of coal-tar, and is considerably warmer than the air. With the mud thus thrown out there has been formed around the mound a large perfectly level and nearly circular plain, about half a mile in circumference. The water mixed with the mud is salt, and the salt is separated from it by evaporation for economical purposes. During the rainy season the action of this mud volcano becomes more violent, the explosions are louder, and the mud is thrown to a greater height.
The crater of Tangkuban-Prahu, another of the volcanoes of Java, presents a remarkable appearance. On approaching its edge, nothing is seen but an abyss, from which dense clouds of vapour continually arise, with hideous sounds, like the steam rushing from the open valves of hundreds of steam-engines. This great abyss consists really of two craters, separated the one from the other by a narrow ridge of rock, to which it is possible to descend and view them both. Each of them is elliptical in form, and surrounded by a crater-wall. That of the western, which the natives call the poison-crater, is a rapid slope nearly a thousand feet in depth, and is densely covered with brushwood almost to the bottom. The flat floor of this deep basin is continually sending out vapours, and in its centre is a pool of boiling water of a sulphur yellow colour. The floor itself is nothing but a crust of sulphur full of rents and holes, whence vapours constantly arise. This crust covers a surface of boiling hot bitter water, and by breaking it beautiful crystals of sulphur may be obtained.
The eastern is called by the natives the king's-crater; its walls are only between five and six hundred feet in depth, and are perfectly bare from top to bottom. The surfaces of the rocks composing them are grayish white, an effect produced upon them by the action of the vapours, to which they are continually exposed. The bottom of this crater consists of mud mixed with sulphur; but round the edges are some stones and hard masses. These are the remnants of an eruption which took place from this crater in 1846, when there was thrown up a great mass of sulphurous boiling mud, accompanied by quantities of sand and stones. This mountain, therefore, seems to be also more of the nature of a mud volcano, than of one which throws out burning lava.
Nearly in a right line to the eastward of Java lies the Island of Sumbáwa, in which stands the volcano of Tomboro, the most violent in its eruptions of any in the world. One of the most remarkable occurred in the year 1815, beginning on the 5th of April and continuing till the middle of July. Its effects were felt over an immense tract of country, embracing the Molucca Islands, Java, and portions of Celebes, Sumatra, and Borneo. The concussions produced by its explosions were sensible at a distance of a thousand miles all round; and their sound is said to have been heard even at so great a distance as seventeen hundred miles. In Java the day was darkened by clouds of ashes, thrown from the mountain to that great distance (three hundred miles), and the houses, streets, and fields, were covered to the depth of several inches with the ashes that fell from the air. So great was the quantity of ashes ejected, that the roofs of houses forty miles distant from the volcano were broken in by their weight. The effects of the eruption extended even to the western coasts of Sumatra, where masses of pumice were seen floating on the surface of the sea, several feet in thickness and many miles in extent.
From the crater itself there were seen to ascend three fiery columns, which, after soaring to a great height, appeared to unite in a confused manner at their tops. Ere long, the whole of the side of the mountain next the village of Sang'ir seemed like one vast body of liquid fire. The glare was terrific, until towards evening, when it became partly obscured by the vast quantities of dust, ashes, stones, and cinders thrown up from the crater. Between nine and ten o'clock at night the ashes and stones began to fall upon the village of Sang'ir, and all round the neighbourhood of the mountain. Then arose a dreadful whirlwind, which blew down nearly every house in the village, tossing the roofs and lighter parts high into the air. In the neighbouring sea-port the effects were even more violent, the largest trees having been torn up by the roots and whirled aloft. Before such a furious tempest no living thing could stand. Men, horses, and cattle were whirled into the air like so much chaff, and then dashed violently down on the ground. The sea rose nearly twelve feet above the highest tide-mark, sweeping away houses, trees, everything within its reach.
This whirlwind lasted about an hour, and then commenced the awful internal thunderings of the mountain. These continued with scarcely any intermission until the 11th of July, when they became more moderate, the intervals between them gradually increasing till the 15th of July, when they ceased. Almost all the villages for a long distance round the mountain were destroyed; and it is computed that nearly twelve thousand persons perished. By far the greatest part of this destruction was wrought by the violence of the whirlwind which accompanied the eruption.
Considerably to the eastward of Sumbáwa lies the Island of Timor, in which there was for a long time a volcanic peak, whose perpetual fires served as a lighthouse to mariners navigating those seas. But in the year 1637 there took place a great eruption of the mountain, which ended in its being gobbled up whole and entire, leaving nothing behind it but a lake, in which its fires were quenched, and which now occupies its place.
To the north of Timor lie the Molucca Islands, several of which are volcanic. In one of them, named Machian, there occurred in the year 1646 an extraordinary event. A mountain was rent from top to bottom, sending out great columns of fire and dense vapours. The two parts now remain two distinct mountains.
In the Island of Sangir, another of the Moluccas, there was a violent eruption in March 1856. A large portion of the mountain fell down, and tremendous floods of water issued forth. The destruction that ensued was dreadful, upwards of two thousand persons having perished.
In another part of the Indian Ocean, near Madagascar, lies the little Isle of Bourbon, containing the volcano Salazes, which occasionally throws out the curious thready substance already mentioned, so strongly resembling spun glass.