The details given hitherto will serve to illustrate the terrible havoc wrought by subterranean forces. So far only outpouring of volcanic matter has been especially noticed. But ere examining the terribly destructive force of earthquakes alone, it is meet that the story of the tremendous eruptions of the century be closed with the story of the greatest of the age; and indeed, when all details are considered, it may rank as the most tremendous convulsion of all history. In certain details, Skaptar may have exceeded it: in destruction of life. Ætna surpassed it in 1669; but as a whole, it is simply without a parallel.
The reader will rightly judge that such a convulsion could hardly occur elsewhere than in the Malayan archipelago. Already the terrible outburst in Sumbawa has been noted; also several others in Java.
Java and Sumatra formerly formed a single island, but were separated by a terrific earthquake in 1115. Shocks are felt in one of the two islands nearly every month. The list of calamities occurring there during the past hundred years is appalling. Besides the convulsions before noted, an eruption of Galung-gung, in 1822, overwhelmed one hundred and fourteen villages and destroyed four thousand people. In 1843 Mt. Guntur cast forth 30,000,000 tons of ashes, doing immense injury to life and property. In 1867 there was a tremendous earthquake which killed many thousands in the interior of the island, and dried up or greatly obstructed the water courses. Immediately afterward the volcano of Gunung-Salak ejected such a quantity of cinders and lava that the work of obliterating or obstructing the streams was complete. The cess-pools and marshes bred pestilence and epidemics, which have carried off from Batavia alone nearly a million of inhabitants in the past twenty-two years. In 1872 the volcano of Mirapi burst out and destroyed several thousand people in the province of Kadu. Sixteen severe earthquakes were felt in 1878, and another one in 1879.
At length, in 1883, Krakatoa, a volcano on a small island in the Straits of Sunda, in the very center of the greatest subterranean furnace on the globe, began to manifest some uneasiness. As in the case of Cosequina, people had almost forgotten to call it a volcano. And when the mountain muttered and fired a little in February, they regarded it with some curiosity, and then, when it quieted down, thought no more about it.
On the 25th of August the people of Batavia heard peculiar subterranean mutterings, as they thought, but the roar increased till it might have been compared to a battery of fortress artillery. An avalanche of stones and ashes began to fall, and continued all night. Krakatoa had begun.
By morning it was impossible for Batavians to reach the Straits of Sunda. The bridges were down and the roads impassable. The waters of the straits were in fearful turmoil. Explosions beneath the sea followed each other in rapid succession. The waters were sixty degrees hotter than usually. The rebounding waves were dashing upon Madura, five hundred miles away, mountains high.
