A REMARKABLE STORY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4861, 28 November 1883, Page 3

A REMARKABLE STORY.

.»■ (From the Peri\ Inquirer.) A well-known and highly-respected settler at the north-west, who has resided in that diatrict for the laßt six yeara, haa forwarded to us the following aooount of a most extraordinary phenomenon he witnessed on the evening of Saturday, August 26, last. It was upon that same day that the disastrous voloanie disturbances whioh have reoently ooourred in the Sunda Straits began, as ne doubt our readers may remember ; and the reoolleotion of this faot may, perhaps, the more easily enable tbem to realise the truth of the following statement :— " I was travelling inland," says our informant, " with a flock of sheep, when late in the afternoon of Saturday, August 25, to my profound astonishment a shower of me ashes began to rain upon me and my party. The fall of the ashes commenoed juat about sunset, and the shower, whioh was at first but very slight* soon became thioker, until it resulted in a steady and heavy rain of light caloined fragments. After the eun set I notioed a bright ruddy glare on the horizon towards the north* east; this was at firat only juat perceptible,, but ar the time wore on it inoreased in both brilliancy and extent. Ihe glare was not at all diffused, and it was of auch a nature that it was impossible to mistake it for a display of the Aurora Australia. On the oontrary, I oould easily ace that the source of tho glare was striotly circumsoribed, or, in other words, it was oonfined to one spot ; bnt as it inoreased in intensity thi fervid glow mounted, higher and higher in the heavens. So far ar I oould roughly calculate, the source of this extraordinary illumination must have been situated about 400 miles inland to the northeast of Boebourne. Ihe showers of ashes oeased just after sunset, and I observed that the steady glare was still to be seen until before sunrise, but as the sun rose the lurid appearance of that portion of the horizon gradually decreased, and at last quite died away when the orb of day made its appearance. Fortunately I afterwards had an opportunity of questioning some natives who had reoently oome from that part of the country, and tbey desoribed the cause of the glare plainly enough. ' Big mountain burn up big,' they said 5 and then they added, •He big one siok. Throw him up red stuff, it run down side and burn grass and treeß. We frightened aud run away, and fire-etioks (i.e., I presume tho ushos) fall on üb. Two, three days after we go look ogam ; mountain only smoke then, and red siok turned blaok and hard, just like stone.' A plainer description of a volcano in a state of eruption could hardly be given by uncivilised brings; and I am therefore compellod to conclude that I waa tho far-distant witness of the first eruption of a volcano that has oo* curred in Australia within the memory of living men." Ia conclusion, vre zany add that the gentleman in question, when he described at Boebourne what ho had seen, was of course in total ignoranoo of the frightful calamity tbat had occurred in the Sunda Straits. The inference the Inquirer (whioh, wo may mention, ia publiahed in the capital of Weatern Australia) would have ua draw ia, plainly, that lhe Javanese eruptions wore visible in Australia, across tho I nri fan Ooean. The nearest point ir* Javn ib distant some 80& miloßfrom Außtralm, and tho Strait* of Sunda are 13P0. We should require ctronßer toiti* mony than tho blaekfellowa' to mako us believe that the Sunda erupt ion oonld be seen j in Western Australia.