Krakatoa

Abstract

By the return from the Caroline Islands, on the 25th inst., of the Jennie Walker, I am enabled to supply a few additional details about the westward progress of the equatorial smoke stream from Krakatoa in September 1883. In NATURE, October 2 (p. 537), is my extract from Miss Cathcart's journal describing the obscuration of the sun at Kusaie, or Strong's Island, on September 7, 1883. The Rev. Dr. Pease and wife came as passengers by the Jennie Walker. They state that, while they were dressing their children on the morning of September 7, the natives came anxiously asking what was the matter with the sun, which rose over the mountains with a strange aspect. It was cloudless, but pale, so as to be stared at freely. Its colour Dr. Pease called a sickly greenish-blue, as if plague-stricken. Mrs. Pease's journal described it as “of a bird's-egg-blue, softened as this colour would be by a thin gauze.” Around the sun the sky was of a silvery gray. At the altitude of 45° the sun appeared of its usual brightness, but resumed its pallid green aspect as it declined in the west.