CAUSE OF VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS.

Evening Star, Issue 11626, 10 July 1902, Page 5

CAUSE OF VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS.

In his book ‘ The Earth’s Beginning/ Set Robert S. Ball explains, the whole inarvelP^ CCSB by which from original chaos tho fintu globe upon which we stand was evcivcd. Sir Robert has also much that is interesting to say in regard to earthquakes and_ volcanoes. Describing the cause of volume eruption, he saya:—“The internal neat of the earth, derived from the primeval nebula, ;s in 1.0 way more strikingly illustrated than by the phenomena of volcanoes. We have shown that there is no longer any nason to believe that the earth is fluid m its interior. Tho evidence has proved that, under the extraordinary pressure which prevails in the earth, tho materials in the central portions of our globe behave with the characteristics of solids rather than of liquids. But though this applies to the deep-seated regions of our globe, it need not universally applv at the surface, or within a moderate depth from the surface. When the circumstances are such that the pressure is relaxed, then the heat is permitted Lo exercise its property of transforming the. solids into liquids. Masses of matter near the earth’s crust are thus, in certain circumstances and in certaiu localities, transformed into the fluid or viscid form. In that state they piay issue from a volcano and flow in sluggish currents as lava. There has been much difference of op’nion as to the immediate cause of volcanic action, but there can be little doubt that the energy which is manifested in a volcanic eruption has been originally derived in some Way from the contraction of tho primeval nebula. The extraordinary vehenfc-nce that a volcanic eruption sometimes attains may be specially illustrated by the case of the great eruption of Krakatoa. It is, indeed, believed that in the apnala of our earth there, has been no record of a volcanic eruption so vast as that which bears the name of this little Is’and in Far Eastern seas, 10,000 miles from our shores.” Sir Robert goes on to tell vividly and exactly of the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883, which he wii nessed, and which was attended by many of the fearful phenomena that accompanied the eruption of Pelee. FELT 100 MILES AWAY. “On the night of Sunday, August 26. 1883, the blackness of the dust clouds, now much thicker than ever in the Strait of Sunda. and adjacent parts of Sumatra and Java, was only occasionally illumined by lurid flashes from the volcano. The Krakatoan thunders were ou the poiut of attaining their complete development. At the town of Batavia, a hundred miles distant, there was no quiet that night. The houses tiembled with the subterranean violence, and the windows rattled as jf heavy artillery were being discharged in the street." And still these efforts seemed to be only rehearsing for the supreme display. Ly ten o’clock cm the morning of Monday. August 27, 1683, the rehearsals were over,’

and the performance began. An overture, consisting of three introductory explwions, was succeeded by a frightful cod-VL-Iskm which tore away a large part of the island of Krakatoa and .-ca tiered it to the winds of heaven. In that final effort ail records of previous explosions on tills earth were completely broken. This -upreme effort it was which produced the mightiest noise that, so far as we can ascertain, has ever been heard on this globe. It must have been indeed a loud noise which could travel from Krakatoa to Batavia and preserve its vehemence over so great a distance; but wc should form a very inadequate conception of the energy of the eruption of Krakatoa if we thought that its sounds were Heard by those merely a hundred miles off. This would be little indeed compared with what is recorded on testimony which it is impossible to denbt. HEARD AT A DISTANCE OP .3.000 MILES. “ Westward from Krakatoa. stretches the wide expanse of the Indian Ocean. On the opposite aide from tho Strait of Sunda lies the island of .Rodriguez, the distance from Krakatoa being almost three thorn and miles. It has been proved by evidence which cannot be doubted chat the hunders of the great volcano attracted the attention of an intelligent coastguard on Rodrigue/., who carefully noted the character of the sounds and the time of the occurrence. He had heard them just four hours after the actual explosion, 'for this is the time tie srund occupied on its journey. Westward the dust of Krakatoa took its way. Of course, everyone knows tho so-called trade winds on our earth’s surface, which olow steadily in fixed directions, and which are of such service to the mariner. But there is yet another constant wind. Wo cannot call it a trade wind, for it has never rendered, and never will render, any service to navigation. It was first disclosed,by Krakatoa. Before the occurrence of that eruption no one had the slightest suspicion that far up aloft, twenty miles over our heads, a mighty tempest is incessantly hurrying with a speed much greater than fhat of the awful hurricane which once laid so large a part, of Calcutfa on the ground and slew so many of its inhabitants. Fortunately for humanity, this new trade wind does not come within less than twenty miles of the earth’s surface. We are thus preserved from the fearful destruction that its unintermittent blasts would produce, blasts against which no tree could stand, and which would, in ten minutes, do as much dam,tec to a citv as would the most violent, earthquake. When Ibis great wind ha J become charged with (he dust of Krakatoa, for the first and, I may add, for the only time, it, stood revealed to human -vision. Then it was seen that this wind circled round the earth In the vicinity of the Equator, and completed its circuit ;n about thirteen days. In the autumn of 1883 the newspapers were full of accounts of strange appearances in the heavens. There is not the least doubt that it was the dust from Krakatoa which produced the beauty of those sunsets, and so long as that- dust remained suspended in our atmosphere, so long were strange signs to be witnessed in the heavenly bodies. Not until two years after the original explosion had all the* particles with which the air was charged by the great eruption finally subsided to the earth.”

The “ snake-bite season ” in Virginia (U.S.) is now just beginning, and local dispensaries in that State are renewing a regulation that last year worked most satisfactorily as an experiment. Formerly ter-ror-stricken tramps used to call at these inst'tntions and exhibit punctures alleged to b; the result of the bites of reptiles. The “patient” was dosed with as much whfoky as he could swallow, and was invariably discharged cured. It got to the ears of the dispensary staff that the wounds were, al-most-without exception, self-infi'cted. > I«e trumps being simply desirous of indulging in a cheap debauch. So last season a notice was disp ayed to the effect that the treatment by alcohol would be discontinued and another substituted. In consequence the doctors had not a solitary snake-bitten nomad to deal with. James Townsend Saward, better known as “Jim the Penman,” was, it is recorded in ‘Mysteries of Police and Crime,’ a man of good birth, a barrister-at-law, who might have done well at the Bar had he not drifted into dissolute ways. He was a man of low tastes, an inveterate gambler, a drunkard, and a debauchee. Te provide funds for bis excesses to took to crime, utilising his extraordinary skill in counterfeiting handwriting. Forgery with him business planned on a wide basis and carried on with extraordinary skill; he was goon known in the criminal world as a certain purchaser of stolen cheques, blank or cancelled, and all bids of exchange. These became his stock-in-trade. He filled up blanks with the signatures that came into his hands, while he used much ingenuity in obtaining fresh signatures when required. It was a common practice with him to commence sham actions and address formal applications to individuals merely for the signature he ob ained in reply. When at last he was found out, a hue-and-cry was set < n foot, and he was arrested in a coffee-shop near Oxford street by two city officers. In his pocket were found two blink cheques of the St. James’s branch of the London and Westminster- Bank. Probably there would have been some difficulty in bringing homo to him the whole of his extensive depredations, but the matter was much simplified by the betrayal of his accomplices, who turned approvers at tho trial, and laid bare the whole of his career of crime.