Volcanoes of Java--Papandayang--Mountain Ingulfed--Great
Destruction of Life and Property--Galoen-gong--Destructive
Eruption--Mount Merapia--Great Eruption, with Hurricane--Another,
very destructive--Mud Volcano Crater of Tankuban-Prahu--Island of
Sumbáwa--Volcano of Tomboro--Terrific Eruption--Timor--A Volcano
quenches itself--Cleaving of Mount Machian--Sangir--Destructive
Eruption--Bourbon.
One of the most marvellous volcanic regions in the world is that
composed of the islands of the Malayan Archipelago in the Indian
Ocean. They form a chain stretching from east to west, but curving
up towards the north at the western extremity. The most easterly of
the chain is Timor, the most westerly Sumatra.
The most interesting of the group is Java, which is almost entirely
of volcanic origin, and contains no less than thirty-eight
mountains of that conical form which indicates their having at one
time or other been active volcanoes. Only a few of them, however,
have been in activity in more recent times. The most remarkable
eruption was that of the mountain named Papandayang, which occurred
in 1772. During this convulsion the greater part of the mountain,
which was formerly one of the largest in the island, was completely
swallowed up in some great underground gulf.
On the night between the 11th and 12th of August of that year, the
mountain appeared to be wholly enveloped in a remarkable luminous
cloud. The inhabitants fled in consternation; but before they could
all escape, the mountain began to totter, and the greater part of
it tumbled down and disappeared. The crash with which it fell was
dreadful, the noise resembling the discharge of volleys of
artillery. Besides that part of the mountain which thus fell in, a
large extent of ground in its neighbourhood was ingulfed. The space
measured fifteen miles in length and six in breadth. The ground for
many miles round this space was covered with immense quantities of
ashes, stones, cinders, and other substances thrown out by the
volcano. These were, on many parts of the surface, accumulated to
the height of three feet; and even at the end of six weeks, the
layers thus deposited retained so much heat as to render the
mountain inaccessible. By this dreadful occurrence forty villages
were destroyed, some ingulfed with the ground on which they stood,
others buried under the loose materials which had been ejected. Not
far short of three thousand of the inhabitants perished.
Another of the volcanoes of Java, called Galoen-gong, burst into
eruption in 1822, commencing with a terrible explosion of stones,
ashes, &c., followed by a stream of hot mud, which overspread a
large tract of ground. This eruption proved still more fatal to
human life, about four thousand persons having been destroyed.
So lately as September 1849, Mount Merapia, another volcano in this
island, which had been supposed to be quite extinct, burst forth
into an eruption, which lasted three days. It was accompanied by a
violent hurricane. The bed of a river was filled up by the matter
thrown out from the crater, and the destruction of property in
crops, &c., was immense. Fortunately the inhabitants succeeded in
making their escape, so that no lives were lost. A second eruption
of this mountain however, in January 1864, was more disastrous,
three hundred and fifty people having perished.
Java likewise contains a remarkable mud volcano. When viewed from a
distance, there are seen to rise from it large volumes of vapour,
like the spray from the billows dashing against a rocky shore, and
there is heard a loud noise like distant thunder. On a nearer
approach, the source of these phenomena is seen to be a
hemispherical mound of black earth mixed with water, about sixteen
feet in diameter, and which at intervals of a few seconds is pushed
upwards by a force acting from beneath to a height of between
twenty and thirty feet. It then suddenly explodes with a loud
noise, scattering in every direction a quantity of black mud, which
has a strong pungent smell resembling that of coal-tar, and is
considerably warmer than the air. With the mud thus thrown out
there has been formed around the mound a large perfectly level and
nearly circular plain, about half a mile in circumference. The
water mixed with the mud is salt, and the salt is separated from it
by evaporation for economical purposes. During the rainy season the
action of this mud volcano becomes more violent, the explosions are
louder, and the mud is thrown to a greater height.
The crater of Tangkuban-Prahu, another of the volcanoes of Java,
presents a remarkable appearance. On approaching its edge, nothing
is seen but an abyss, from which dense clouds of vapour continually
arise, with hideous sounds, like the steam rushing from the open
valves of hundreds of steam-engines. This great abyss consists
really of two craters, separated the one from the other by a narrow
ridge of rock, to which it is possible to descend and view them
both. Each of them is elliptical in form, and surrounded by a
crater-wall. That of the western, which the natives call the
poison-crater, is a rapid slope nearly a thousand feet in depth,
and is densely covered with brushwood almost to the bottom. The
flat floor of this deep basin is continually sending out vapours,
and in its centre is a pool of boiling water of a sulphur yellow
colour. The floor itself is nothing but a crust of sulphur full of
rents and holes, whence vapours constantly arise. This crust covers
a surface of boiling hot bitter water, and by breaking it beautiful
crystals of sulphur may be obtained.
The eastern is called by the natives the king's-crater; its walls
are only between five and six hundred feet in depth, and are
perfectly bare from top to bottom. The surfaces of the rocks
composing them are grayish white, an effect produced upon them by
the action of the vapours, to which they are continually exposed.
The bottom of this crater consists of mud mixed with sulphur; but
round the edges are some stones and hard masses. These are the
remnants of an eruption which took place from this crater in 1846,
when there was thrown up a great mass of sulphurous boiling mud,
accompanied by quantities of sand and stones. This mountain,
therefore, seems to be also more of the nature of a mud volcano,
than of one which throws out burning lava.
Nearly in a right line to the eastward of Java lies the Island of
Sumbáwa, in which stands the volcano of Tomboro, the most violent
in its eruptions of any in the world. One of the most remarkable
occurred in the year 1815, beginning on the 5th of April and
continuing till the middle of July. Its effects were felt over an
immense tract of country, embracing the Molucca Islands, Java, and
portions of Celebes, Sumatra, and Borneo. The concussions produced
by its explosions were sensible at a distance of a thousand miles
all round; and their sound is said to have been heard even at so
great a distance as seventeen hundred miles. In Java the day was
darkened by clouds of ashes, thrown from the mountain to that great
distance (three hundred miles), and the houses, streets, and
fields, were covered to the depth of several inches with the ashes
that fell from the air. So great was the quantity of ashes ejected,
that the roofs of houses forty miles distant from the volcano were
broken in by their weight. The effects of the eruption extended
even to the western coasts of Sumatra, where masses of pumice were
seen floating on the surface of the sea, several feet in thickness
and many miles in extent.
From the crater itself there were seen to ascend three fiery
columns, which, after soaring to a great height, appeared to unite
in a confused manner at their tops. Ere long, the whole of the side
of the mountain next the village of Sang'ir seemed like one vast
body of liquid fire. The glare was terrific, until towards evening,
when it became partly obscured by the vast quantities of dust,
ashes, stones, and cinders thrown up from the crater. Between nine
and ten o'clock at night the ashes and stones began to fall upon
the village of Sang'ir, and all round the neighbourhood of the
mountain. Then arose a dreadful whirlwind, which blew down nearly
every house in the village, tossing the roofs and lighter parts
high into the air. In the neighbouring sea-port the effects were
even more violent, the largest trees having been torn up by the
roots and whirled aloft. Before such a furious tempest no living
thing could stand. Men, horses, and cattle were whirled into the
air like so much chaff, and then dashed violently down on the
ground. The sea rose nearly twelve feet above the highest tide-mark,
sweeping away houses, trees, everything within its reach.
This whirlwind lasted about an hour, and then commenced the awful
internal thunderings of the mountain. These continued with scarcely
any intermission until the 11th of July, when they became more
moderate, the intervals between them gradually increasing till the
15th of July, when they ceased. Almost all the villages for a long
distance round the mountain were destroyed; and it is computed that
nearly twelve thousand persons perished. By far the greatest part
of this destruction was wrought by the violence of the whirlwind
which accompanied the eruption.
Considerably to the eastward of Sumbáwa lies the Island of Timor,
in which there was for a long time a volcanic peak, whose perpetual
fires served as a lighthouse to mariners navigating those seas. But
in the year 1637 there took place a great eruption of the mountain,
which ended in its being gobbled up whole and entire, leaving
nothing behind it but a lake, in which its fires were quenched, and
which now occupies its place.
To the north of Timor lie the Molucca Islands, several of which are
volcanic. In one of them, named Machian, there occurred in the year
1646 an extraordinary event. A mountain was rent from top to
bottom, sending out great columns of fire and dense vapours. The
two parts now remain two distinct mountains.
In the Island of Sangir, another of the Moluccas, there was a
violent eruption in March 1856. A large portion of the mountain
fell down, and tremendous floods of water issued forth. The
destruction that ensued was dreadful, upwards of two thousand
persons having perished.
In another part of the Indian Ocean, near Madagascar, lies the
little Isle of Bourbon, containing the volcano Salazes, which
occasionally throws out the curious thready substance already
mentioned, so strongly resembling spun glass.