Lake Charles Commercial

The Javanese Eruptions.
[N. O. Picayune.]

The details of the recent calamitous volcanic eruptions at and off the west end of the Island of Java are very wonderful. They rival any happenings of that description since the sudden upheaval of the Mountain Jorullo in Mexico, out of the midst of the plain of Malpais, which was watered by two streams and under cultivation. Earthquakes began, then flames burst from the plain, then rocks were hurled upward, then Jorullo rose out of the earth and towered upward till he vomited his fire from a cone 1700 feet above the level of the plain. But Jorullo is silent, while Java is a massive center of burning, whose great mountains leave, fortunately, but few arable interspaces in the western part of the fertile island. There are upward of 40 volcanoes in the earth crust, of which Java contains 46 and Sumatra (lying next northwest) 19. The lurid peaks of the Javanese ridge blaze fiercely enough sometimes, but they scarcely equal in persistency Mount Sangay in Ecuador, which has been vomiting since 1728, and whose explosions sometimes melt and mingle into a continuous roar, heard at a distance of 348 geographical miles. But a continuous eruption is little dangerous. The Javanese incident involves perhaps 100,000 lives, and has carried down cities. Papandayan, more than seven thousand feet high, was riven into seven parts. Volumes of carbonic acid gas rolled forth, killing birds, beasts, and men. Fourteen new volcanoes rose out of the sea between Java and Sumatra last Tuesday morning. The Soengepan volcano split into five parts. Another report says that sixteen volcanoes appeared between Krakatoa and Sibisie Island. Krakatoa was an island midway between Java and Sumatra, in the Strait of Sunda, which is sixty miles wide. Krakatoa has gone down. The sea flows over the spot where the mountain of Kramatan sank into the nether fires. This mountain stood upon the Island of Sumatra at its extreme southeastern point, 180 miles from Batavia and 100 miles north of Krakatoa. The Merak quarries went down, carrying with them every soul. Pelog Belong town was a hundred miles northwest of Krakatoa; it is gone. The towns of Tjirigin and Anjer were on the west coast of Java, 40 miles apart: both are gone.

The quantity of matter vomited is enormous. Floating on the sea is a mass two feet thick, through which a vessel can hardly force its way. In 1843 Mount Guntur flung out 30,000,000 tons of ashes and sand. In 1822 more than a hundred villages were wasted by the eruption of Mount Galunggung. Yet this astonishingly eruptive island is marvelously fertile. Falling ashes interfere with coffee planting, but coffee planting perseveres. The area of Java is only 49,176 square miles, but a trifle more than that of Louisiana; yet its population is 19,067,829, of which only about 240,000 are foreigners of Oriental or European nations. This is the most valuable dependency of the Netherlands, whose entire colonial possessions cover 666,700 square miles, but only have 8,000,000 or 9,000,000 people besides the inhabitants of Java-say some 30,000,000 altogether.

How many Europeans does it require to dominate an Asiatic race? The Netherlands have 4,114,077 people, and seven times as many Asiatic subjects. The United Kingdom has 35,246,562 people, and Asiatic subjects numbering 255,962,541-again seven times.