Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/378

366 breadth, culminating in two elevations, the taller of which, known as the Peak of Krakatau, rises (or did rise) some 2,750 feet above the sea. Surrounding it on all sides are numerous volcanic cones. The Tengamoes (or Kaiser's Peak) to its northwest is situated at the head of the Semangka Bay, and the quiescent Rajabasa to its northeast in the southern promontory of Sumatra; in the east by south the Karang smolders in Bantam, and southeast rise the active cones of the Buitenzorg Mountains. Standing in the straits and very little to the north of Krakatau are the two dormant or dead cones of Sebesie and Sebooko. A line drawn from Rajabasa, passing along the western side of Krakatau, and continued thence to Prince's Island, which lies off Java Head, would mark the boundary on the eastward side of the shallow Java Sea, which rarely exceeds fifty fathoms, and on the west side of the deep Indian Ocean. On looking at the accompanying map of the locality before the eruption it will be seen that close to the east and northwest sides of Krakatau there are two small fragments of land, Lang and Verlatin Islands respectively. It is Mr. Norman Lockyer's opinion that these are two higher edges of the old rim of a subsided crater, overflowed in part by the sea through inequalities in the margin between them; that the heights on Krakatau itself, the remaining portion of the old volcano summit, are cones elevated on this old crater-floor; and that the ancient funnel is practically coextensive with the area inclosed by these three islets, though till the 20th of May last blocked up by volcanic débris.

The earliest accounts of Krakatau we have been able to obtain are contained in a curious old volume, "Aenmerckelijke Reysen van Elias Hesse nae en in Oost-Indien van't jaar 1680 tot 1684" ("Remarkable Journeys of Elias Hesse to the East Indies from the Year 1680 to 1684"), published in Utrecht in 1694. The author relates that he passed on the 19th of November, 1681, "the Island of Cracatouw, which is uninhabited. It had about a year before broken out in eruption. It can be seen far at sea, when one is still many miles distant from it, on account of the continually ascending smoke of the fire; we were with our ship very close under the shore; we could perfectly well and accurately see the wholly burned trees on the top of the mountain, but not the fire itself." About the same period Johann Wilhelm Vogel, one of the Dutch East India Company's servants, who published in 1716 a very interesting account of his travels there, passed through the straits. He says: "On February 1, 1681, by God's help, in front of the Straits of Sunda, where, with great astonishment, I saw that the island of Cracketouw, which on my former journey to Sumatra appeared so very green and gay with trees, lay now altogether burned up and waste before our eyes, and spued out fire from great fire-holes. And on inquiry at the ship, Captain . . ., at what time it broke out, . . . I was told that it was in May, 1680. . . . The former year, and when he was on his voyage from Bengal, he had met with a