The Wonder Book of Volcanoes and Earthquakes

by Edwin J. Houston

Since the limits of our book will prevent any further description of volcanic districts or regions, we must content ourselves with descriptions of some of the noted of the remaining volcanoes, although many we will thus omit contain great wonders.

As we have already seen from the description of Krakatoa, the island of Java near which Krakatoa is situated is especially noted not only for the great number of its volcanic mountains, but also for the frequency and severity of their eruptions.

Perhaps the most destructive eruption of any of the volcanic mountains of Java was of a volcanic mountain called Papandayang. This volcano, situated on the southern coast of the island, is 7,034 feet in height, and was in eruption in 1772. According to Scrope, from whom the details of this eruption have been obtained, two others of the many volcanoes on Java, situated at 184 and 352 geographical miles respectively from Papandayang, broke out at the same time into active eruption, although several intervening cones were undisturbed.

The eruption of Papandayang was of the explosive type, a large part of the mountain being broken off by the great force of the eruption, and its materials scattered far and wide over the surrounding country. During this eruption forty villages with their inhabitants were buried by great showers of ashes. An area of fifteen by six miles was left in the shape of a huge pit by the great eruption. It was at first believed by some that this pit was due to the actual sinking in of the ground, but a more careful study has shown that it was in reality caused by the great force of the eruption, being, in point of fact, a vast explosive crater that was formed by the expulsion of the materials that formerly filled it. Some idea of the great extent of this eruption of Papandayang may be had by the size of this huge crater that was six by fifteen miles in diameter.

Another great volcanic mountain in Java that had a terrific eruption was Galungoon, or Galung Gung. According to Lyell, from whom the facts of this eruption have been obtained, prior to this eruption the slopes of the mountain were highly cultivated and densely populated. There was a circular pit or crater on the summit of the mountain, but there had been no traditions of any eruptions prior to 1822.

In July, 1822, the waters of the Kunir River, one of the small rivers that flow down the slopes of the mountain, were observed to become hot and turbid. On the 8th of October, 1822, a terrific explosion was suddenly heard, accompanied by great earthquake shocks, when immense columns of hot water and boiling mud, mixed with burning brimstone, ashes, and lapilli, were thrown violently like a great waterspout from the opening in the mountain, with such enormous violence that great quantities fell across the River Tandoi, forty miles distant, while the valleys in the neighborhood were filled with a burning torrent. The rivers overflowed their banks and produced great destruction by floods of burning and boiling materials that washed away all the villages and cultivated fields in their path. During this eruption an extended area was covered with boiling mud in which were completely buried the bodies of many of those who perished.

So great was the violence with which the boiling mud, cinders, etc., were thrown out of the mountain that they entirely failed to fall on many of the villages in the immediate neighborhood, while the more remote villages were completely destroyed and buried out of sight under the mud.

The first eruption continued for nearly five hours. During several days following the eruption, torrents of rain fell, which produced floods in the rivers that covered the country far and wide with thick layers of mud.

Four days after the great eruption, that is, on the 12th of October, 1822, a second and still more violent eruption occurred, when immense quantities of hot mud were again thrown out of the crater. Great blocks of hardened lava called basalt were thrown a distance of seven miles from the volcano. This eruption was accompanied by a violent earthquake. It was during this eruption that a huge piece of the side of the cone was blown out, not unlike the case of the Val del Bove on Mt. Etna. The surrounding country was covered with mud. The immense quantity of materials thus thrown out of the side of the mountain produced changes in the courses of several rivers, thus causing great floods which in the single night of October 12th drowned 2,000 people. During these eruptions there were 114 villages destroyed, with a total loss of life of about 4,000.