ERUPTION IN JAVA.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 125, 27 May 1919, Page 5

ERUPTION IN JAVA.

A GIGANTIC OUTBURST.

THIRTY VILLAGES DESTROYED.

DEATH ROLL OF 15,000,

I Received 10.25 a.m.) i LONDON, May 2fi. ! A violent eruption uf the volcano of Klbet. in the inland of .lava, occurred yesterday, liivat masses of lava tlowod ioWJi the sides of the muuntain, while fcuge volumes ul* ashes, mud and stones ,fere hurlo! out, covering the t-urroui djßg country over a radius of many miles. Thirty tillages on the slopes of the ■mountain were louipletely destroyed by the outburst, while the dentil roll is estimated at 10,000. — IA. and X.Z. Cable.) . Japan lies w'uhin the ring of volcanoes which encircle!- the i'acilic. and which includes nit- volcanoes of Kamchatka, the Kuriles. Japan, the Philippines, Sumatra, J,'ew Zealand, and the Arctic, and which ia continued up the western coast i or the two Americas. Krakatoa, an island ill the Sunda Straits, just off the Java Strait*, was the scene of a gigantic explosion on August 20, 1883, after two centuries 'if quiet-cence. One-half of the adjacent island of Kakata was blown Ewav. and the depth of the great submerged crater on the edge of which Easata stood, was increased to nearly 3)0 fathoms. The a>!;es were projected into the air to s-ueh a height that the . linest oi them were carried all over the j world, and for months afterwards occasioned brilliant sunset effects in all lati- | tildes. Great sea-waves from 70 to 100 j feet high -tarted from the crater and ! devastated the surrounding eoa>ts, | crowning many thousands of people. The j waves crossed the ocean in all directions, asd were traced by their effects on the tide gauges even in California and the Isthmus of Panama. Waves were als i I produced in the atmosphere, and circled round the whole globe. The Kloct volcano is evidently of simi- \ lar type to Krakatoa, the explosive, ; whose activity is very violent, but brief isd intermittent, differentiating them from the effusive type, characterised by tie admission of floods of lava which frequently deluge large tracts of country, j The most deadly outbursts of the ex- j plcare type are those of the West I Indian volcanoes, Mont Pelee in Martinique and La Soufriere in St. Vincent. In 1902, after a brief preliminary phase, they burst into activity and discharged j not only clouds of sream and ashes, but j also black clouds composed of siperheared steam and incandescent dust. These rolled like torrent* down the slopes of the mountains. About I i'ifi people peri.-hed in St. Vincent, while j hi Martinique the city of St. Pierre, with | its 40.000 inhabitants, only five surviving, j <rts destroyed in a few minutesSuch outbreaks as that now recorded I sre due to the fact that at depths of a :>w miles under the earth's crust, especially in regions which are undergoing or v iTe recently undergone the process of i idiag, gn»at masse* of rock exist at i very high temperature and under great presnre. They contain much water rajenr occluded, but ready to expand j ~ha the pressure i> relieved. The ter- ■ posture not less than 1200 degrees C. asd may be considerably above this, and esrape tends to take place along the lines ci weakness.