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Updated: May 28, 2025
In the strait between Sumatra and Java lies a very small volcanic island, Krakatau, which in the summer of 1883 was the scene of one of the most violent eruptions that have taken place in historic times.
R. D. M. Verbeek, Krakatau, p. 105 ; also, J. Milne, The Great Earthquake of Japan, 1891. Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., vol. iii. Proc. Roy. Soc., No. 237 ; also, Rep. Brit. Assoc. . Hopkins, supra cit., p. 218. C. Davison and G. H. Darwin, Phil. Trans., vol. 178, p; 241. Durocher, Ann. des Mines, vol. ii. .
A halt at nightfall outside a bristling reef, in consequence of a Malay lighthouse-keeper omitting to trim his lamp, after the fashion of his unthinking kind, secures the compensation of steaming within sight of world-famous Krakatau, the volcanic cone, which in 1883 was split in half by the stupendous eruption affecting in various degrees the whole of the world.
Smoke still issues from Krakatau, though the vast rent in the cloven pyramid must materially diminish the power of any future eruption, and Nature's busy hand already covers the torn side of the precipitous cone with a green veil of sparse vegetation.
A Dutch record exists of a violent eruption in 1680, but the Krakatau volcano was afterwards considered extinct, and until the spring of 1883 no signs of activity occurred. At this date, smoke, pumice, and cinders, fell without intermission. For eight weeks Krakatau blazed and thundered, the explosions being audible at Batavia, eighty miles off.
Krakatau, reduced from thirteen to six square miles, from the northern portion of the symmetrical pyramid being completely blown away by the volcanic fires, retains the conical peak of Mount Radaka, nearly three thousand feet high.
In isolated Krakatau only one outlet existed for the vast accumulations of destructive agencies, gathering irresistible impetus through the protracted period of condensation and suppression which heated this mighty furnace of Nature's subterranean laboratory with sevenfold power.
A curious marine growth of weed and moss rooted itself on Krakatau three years after the phenomenal eruption, from seeds floating on the tide or carried by the wind.
The thin soil formed by these decaying plants, and enriched by the chemical ingredients of disintegrating volcanic ash, in time produced a more luxuriant verdure, and in the interval elapsing since the threefold ravages of fire, flood, and earthquake, caused by Krakatau, convulsed the East with terror, the dread mountain has become wreathed with flower and fruit, for orchards and gardens, tended by the Malays from the surrounding islands, now flourish at the foot of the quiescent peak.
The successive waves of atmospherical disturbance, travelling with the velocity of sound, were traced three times completely round the globe. Krakatau, though uninhabited, was the occasional resort of fishermen who plied their calling in the Sunda Straits.
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