The Earth's Beginning

by Robert S. Ball

Fig. 26.—Showing Coasts invaded by the Great Sea-waves from Krakatoa.
(From the Royal Society’s Reports.)

On the night of Sunday, August 26th, 1883, the blackness of the dust-clouds, now much thicker than ever in the Straits of Sunda and adjacent parts of Sumatra and Java, was only occasionally illumined by lurid flashes from the volcano. The Krakatoan thunders were on the point of attaining their complete development. At the town of Batavia, a hundred miles distant, there was no quiet that night. The houses trembled with the subterranean violence, and the windows rattled as if heavy artillery were being discharged in the streets. And still these efforts seemed to be only rehearsing for the supreme display. By ten o’clock on the morning of Monday, August 27th, 1883, the rehearsals were over and the performance began. An overture, consisting of two or three introductory explosions, was succeeded by a frightful convulsion which tore away a large part of the island of Krakatoa and scattered it to the winds of heaven. In that final effort all records of previous explosions on this earth were completely broken.

This supreme effort it was which produced the mightiest noise that, so far as we can ascertain, has ever been heard on this globe. It must have been indeed a loud noise which could travel from Krakatoa to Batavia and preserve its vehemence over so great a distance; but we should form a very inadequate conception of the energy of the eruption of Krakatoa if we thought that its sounds were heard by those merely a hundred miles off. This would be little indeed compared with what is recorded, on testimony which it is impossible to doubt.

THE EARLY STAGE OF THE ERUPTION OF KRAKATOA.
(From a Photograph taken on May 27th, 1883.)

Westward from Krakatoa stretches the wide expanse of the Indian Ocean. On the opposite side from the Straits of Sunda lies the island of Rodriguez, the distance from Krakatoa being almost three thousand miles. It has been proved by evidence which cannot be doubted that the booming of the great volcano attracted the attention of an intelligent coastguard on Rodriguez, who carefully noted the character of the sounds and the time of their occurrence. He had heard them just four hours after the actual explosion, for this is the time the sound occupied on its journey.

We shall better realise the extraordinary vehemence of this tremendous noise if we imagine a similar event to take place in localities more known to most of us than are the far Eastern seas.

If Vesuvius were vigorous enough to thunder forth like Krakatoa, how great would be the consternation of the world! Such a report might be heard by King Edward at Windsor, and by the Czar of all the Russias at Moscow. It would astonish the German Emperor and all his subjects. It would penetrate to the seclusion of the Sultan at Constantinople. Nansen would still have been within its reach when he was furthest north, near the Pole. It would have extended to the sources of the Nile, near the Equator. It would have been heard by Mohammedan pilgrims at Mecca. It would have reached the ears of exiles in Siberia. No inhabitant of Persia would have been beyond its range, while passengers on half the liners crossing the Atlantic would also catch the mighty reverberation.

The subject is of such exceptional interest that I may venture on another illustration. Let us suppose that a similar earth-shaking event took place in a central position in the United States. Let us say, for example, that an explosion occurred at Pike’s Peak as resonant as that from Krakatoa. It would certainly startle not a little the inhabitants of Colorado far and wide. The ears of dwellers in the neighbouring States would receive a considerable shock. With lessening intensity the sound would spread much further around—indeed, it might be heard all over the United States. The sonorous waves would roll over to the Atlantic coast, they would be heard on the shores of the Pacific. Florida would not be too far to the south, nor Alaska too remote to the north. If, indeed, we could believe that the sound would travel as freely over the great continent as it did across the Indian Ocean, then we may boldly assert that every ear in North America might listen to the thunder from Pike’s Peak, if it rivalled Krakatoa. The reverberation might even be audible by skin-clad Eskimos amid the snows of Greenland, and by naked Indians sweltering on the Orinoco. Can we doubt that Krakatoa made the greatest noise that has ever been recorded?