“Of the 3,500 Europeans and Americans in Batavia—which for several hours was in darkness, owing to the fall of ashes—800 perished at Anjer. 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 about 200 lives of the inhabitants and those who sought refuge there.”
The loss of life above mentioned was but a small fraction of the total loss. All along the coasts of the adjoining large islands towns and villages were swept away and their inhabitants drowned, till the total loss was, as nearly as could be estimated, 36,000 souls. Krakatoa thus surpassed Mont Pelee in its tale of destruction. These two, indeed, have been the most destructive to life of known volcanic explosions, since the volcano usually falls far short of the earthquake in its murderous results.
The distant effects of this explosion were as remarkable as the near ones. The concussion of the air reached to an unprecedented distance and the clouds of floating dust encircled the earth, producing striking phenomena of which an account is given at the end of this chapter.
The rapidity with which the effects of the Krakatoa eruption made themselves evident in all parts of the earth is perhaps the most remarkable outcome of this extraordinary event. The floating pumice reached the harbor of St. Paul on the 22nd of March, 1884, after having made a voyage of some two hundred and sixty days at a rate of six-tenths of a mile an hour. Immense quantities of pumice of a similar description, and believed to have been derived from the same source, reached Tamatave in Madagascar five months later, and no doubt much of it long continued to float round the world.
SERIES OF ATMOSPHERIC WAVES
Another result of the eruption was the series of atmospheric waves, caused by the disturbance in the atmosphere, which affected the barometer over the entire world. The velocity with which these waves traveled has been variously estimated at from 912.09 feet to 1066.29 feet per second. This speed is, of course, very much inferior to that at which sound travels through the air. Yet, in three distinct cases, the noise of the Krakatoa explosions was plainly heard at a distance of at least 2,200 miles, and in one instance—that recorded from Rodriguez—of nearly 3,000. The sound travelled to Ceylon, Burmah, Manila, New Guinea and Western Australia, places, however, within a radius of about 2,000 miles; out Diego Garcia lies outside that area, and Rodriguez a thousand miles beyond it. Six days subsequent to the explosion, after the atmospheric waves had traveled four times round the globe, the barometer was still affected by them.
Another result, similar in kind, was the extraordinary dissemination of the great ocean wave, which in a like manner seems to have encircled the earth, since high waves, without evident cause, appeared not only in the Pacific, but at many places on the Atlantic coast within a few days after the event. They were observed alike in England and at New York. The writer happened to be at Atlantic City, on the New Jersey coast, at this time. It was a period of calm, the winds being at rest, but, unheralded, there came in an ocean wave of such height as to sweep away the ocean-front boardwalk and do much other damage. He ascribed this strange wave at the time to the Krakatoa explosion, and is of the same opinion still.
In addition to the account given of this extraordinary volcanic event, it seems desirable to give Sir Robert S. Ball’s description of it in his recent work, “The Earth’s Beginnings.” While repeating to some extent what we have already said, it is worthy, from its freshness of description and general readability, of a place here.
SIR ROBERT S. BALL’S DESCRIPTION
“Until the year 1883 few had ever heard of Krakatoa. It was unknown to fame, as are hundreds of other gems of glorious vegetation set in tropical waters. It was not inhabited, but the natives from the surrounding shores of Sumatra and Java used occasionally to draw their canoes up on its beach, while they roamed through the jungle in search of the wild fruits that there abounded. It was known to the mariner who navigated the Straits of Sunda, for it was marked on his charts as one of the perils of the intricate navigation in those waters. It was no doubt recorded that the locality had been once, or more than once, the seat of an active volcano. In fact, the island seemed to owe its existence to some frightful eruption of by-gone days; but for a couple of centuries there had been no fresh outbreak. It almost seemed as if Krakatoa might be regarded as a volcano that had become extinct. In this respect it would only be like many other similar objects all over the globe, or like the countless extinct volcanoes all over the moon.