of battle. Finally the whole island was blown to pieces, and now came
the most awful contest of nature--a battle of death between Neptune
and Vulcan; the sea poured down into the chasm millions of tons, only
to be at first converted into vapor by the millions of tons of
seething white hot lava beneath. Over the shores 30 miles away, waves
over 100 ft. high rolled with such a fury that everything, even to a
part of the bedrock, was swept away. Blocks of stone, of 50 tons
weight were carried two miles inland. On the Sumatra side of the
straits a large vessel was carried three miles inland. The wave, of
course growing less in intensity, traveled across the whole Indian
Ocean, 5,000 miles, to the Cape of Good Hope and around it into the
Atlantic. The waves in the atmosphere traveled around the globe three
times at the rate of 700 miles per hour. The dust from the volcano was
carried up into the atmosphere fully twenty miles and the finest of it
was distributed through the whole body of air. The reader doubtless
remembers the beautiful reddish or purple glow at sunrise and sunset
for fully six months after August, 1883--that glow was caused by
volcanic dust in the atmosphere interfering with the passage of the
sun's rays of the upper part of the solar spectrum, more manifest at
sun rising and setting than at other times during the day, because at
these periods the sun's rays have to travel obliquely through the
atmosphere, and consequently penetrating a very deep layer, were
deprived of all their colors except the red.

The loss of life was appalling. The last sight on earth to 35,000
people was that of the awful eruption. Engulfed in the ocean or
covered with heaps of ashes, a few hours after the eruption commenced
the awful work was done, and that vast multitude had vanished from off
the face of the earth. The fact that in the neighborhood of the
mountain there was a sparse population accounts for there not being