MUD LAKE OF JAVA.
The following details relative to the volcanic springs of boiling mud in Java are extracted from the Penang Gazette.
Having received an account of a wonderful phenomenon in the plains of Grobogna, a party set off, from Solo, in September, 1814, to examine it. On approaching the place, they saw what at first appeared like the surf breaking over the rocks, with a heavy spray falling to the leeward. Alighting, they went to the “Bluddugs,” as the Javanese call them, which they found to be an elevated plain of mud, about two miles in circumference, in the center of which immense bodies of soft mud were thrown up to the hight of ten or fifteen feet, in the form of large bubbles, which bursting, emitted great volumes of dense white smoke. The largest bubbles, of which there were two, rose and burst some seven or eight times a minute, throwing up from one to three tuns of mud, the smell of the smoke from which was very offensive, like the washings of a gun-barrel. It was both difficult and dangerous to go near the large bubbles, as the surface, except where it had been hardened by the sun, was all a quagmire. They went, however, close to a small bubble, (the plain was full of them, of all sizes,) and observed it for some time. It appeared to heave and swell, and when the air within had raised it to some hight, it burst, and the mud fell down in concentric circles, and then remained quiet till again it was raised, again to burst; which was at intervals of from one to two minutes. The water drained from the mud was collected by the Javanese, and being exposed to the sun deposited crystals of salt.
Next morning the party rode to a place in the forest, to view a salt lake, a mud hillock, and various boiling pools. The lake was about half a mile in circumference, of dirty-looking water, boiling up all over in gurgling eddies; the water being cold, bitter and salt, with an offensive smell. The mud hillock, which was near, was about fifteen feet high, in the form of a cone, with a base of eighty, and a top of eight feet diameter. The top was open, and the interior, which was full of boiling and heaving mud, was found to be eleven fathoms deep. Every rise of the mud was attended by a rumbling noise from within; and the mud was more liquid than at the bluddugs, and unattended by smoke. Near the foot of this hillock was a small pool of water, like that of the lake, boiling violently; and some two hundred yards distant, two larger pools or springs of the same general description, the smell of which was very offensive, and the boiling of which could be heard at quite a distance, resembling the noise of a small waterfall. The water both of the bluddugs and of the lake, is used medicinally by the Javanese, and also, as stated above, for the making of salt, which is gathered in considerable quantities, and the government income from which adds not a little to the public revenues. The general cause of the phenomena here witnessed, is supposed, beyond all question, to be volcanic; the salt water being thrown up by this agency in a heated state, and thus mingling with the soil to produce the boiling and heaving mud above described.