The Island Of Makian, One Of The Moluccas, Was Rent
Open In 1646 By A Violent Eruption Which Left A Huge Chasm On One
Side, Extending Into The Heart Of The Mountain.
It was, when I
last visited it in 1860, clothed with vegetation to the summit,
and contained twelve populous Malay villages.
On the 29th of
December, 1862, after 215 years of perfect inaction, it again
suddenly burst forth, blowing up and completely altering the
appearance of the mountain, destroying the greater part of the
inhabitants, and sending forth such volumes of ashes as to darken
the air at Ternate, forty miles off, and to almost entirely
destroy the growing crops on that and the surrounding islands.
The island of Java contains more volcanoes, active and extinct,
than any other known district of equal extent. They are about
forty-five in number, and many of them exhibit most beautiful
examples of the volcanic cone on a large scale, single or double,
with entire or truncated summits, and averaging 10,000 feet high.
It is now well ascertained that almost all volcanoes have been
slowly built up by the accumulation of matter - mud, ashes, and
lava - ejected by themselves. The openings or craters, however,
frequently shift their position, so that a country may be covered
with a more or less irregular series of hills in chains and
masses, only here and there rising into lofty cones, and yet the
whole may be produced by true volcanic action. In this manner the
greater part of Java has been formed.
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