A Last-Day Sign by E. H. GATES

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 19, 1908

A Last-Day Sign

By E. H. GATES

E. H. GATES

While passing through the Strait of Sunda on a recent trip from Singapore to Sumatra, I sighted the island of Krakatoa but a few miles away, the scene of one of the most violent volcanic eruptions of the latter days; in fact, it is said to be one of the greatest of the kind in history. This event took place in 1883, and is known in history as the “Java Earthquake,” the island being not many miles from the coast of Java, Sumatra being on the opposite side of the island.

In 1680 there was an eruption at the same place, but less severe than the one under consideration. The convulsion of which I shall write took place Aug. 26-28, 1883. Three months before this the volcano began to show signs of activity by throwing up steam, pumice stone, and dust. August 26 a fearful explosion took place. As a result of the openings made, the sea rushed into the bowels of the earth, and coming in contact with the intense heat raging there, produced other most terrific explosions, which blew away the whole side of the island, leaving a vertical cliff in place of the rounded outline that existed previously. Other islands were formed in the vicinity from the material thrown away from Krakatoa. Stones, dust, and ashes were shot into the air to the height of seventeen miles. The finer and lighter dust reached the higher layers of air, and by these currents was carried to every continent on earth. This red dust suspended in the air produced for many months remarkably brilliant sunsets. At Batavia, one hundred miles away, the air was darkened by the great amount of ashes thrown up, and lamps had to be lighted in the daytime. Such vast quantities of pumice stone were vomited up, that it floated on the sea for hundreds of miles. In fact, when I passed the island, I saw this stone still floating in small quantities.

The air disturbance was world-wide. On this point the Encyclopedia Britannica says: “The culminating paroxysm of Krakatoa on the morning of August 27 gave rise to an atmospheric wave, which, traveling outward from the volcano as a center, became a great circle at 180° from its point of origin, whence it continued traveling onward and contracting until it reached a node at the antipodes to Krakatoa. It was then reflected or reproduced, traveling backward again to the volcano, where it once more returned in its original direction. In this manner its repetition was observed not fewer than seven times at many of the stations, four passages having been those of the wave traveling from Krakatoa, and three of the wave traveling from its antipodes, subsequently to which its traces were lost.”

The noise of the explosion was perhaps heard at a greater distance than that of any previous convulsion of nature. The sounds were heard at Batavia, one hundred miles away; at Sourabaya, Java, three hundred fifty miles distant (as the captain of our ship informed me); at Bangkok, Siam, 1,413 miles; as well as in South and West Australia. It was also heard at the Philippine Islands, 1,450 miles distant; at Ceylon, 2,058 miles away; and at Rodriguez, nearly 3,000 miles distant.

The effect of the eruption on the waters of the ocean was equally as remarkable, and was the most disastrous on the near-by shores of Java and Sumatra. The successive explosions raised seas that swept over the land, engulfing and utterly blotting from existence whole towns and villages, with all living creatures in them. In Java 3,600 persons lost their lives. The total loss of life was probably not far from 50,000. The captain of our ship told me that a vessel at anchor at Telok Betong, Sumatra, was carried ten miles inland, and left on a hill forty feet above sea-level, where it can be seen to this day. Even at Cape Horn, nearly 8,000 miles away, the waves were felt.

Within the last two or three years these earth tremors have become more and more frequent, and will in the future constitute one of the most prominent of the last-day tokens. These will culminate in the last “great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.” Then every island (not Krakatoa only) shall flee away, and the mountains shall not be found. Then the cities of the nations shall fall, and great Babylon shall come in remembrance before God to receive from his hand the cup of wrath. At that time the heavens shall depart as a scroll, and the islands and mountains shall be moved out of their places. In the caverns and chasms formed by these mighty convulsions, kings and great men shall vainly try to hide from the face of the Son of God, whose truth they have rejected. Then happy shall be the man who has learned from the lessons of the present disasters the meaning which God intended they should convey.

Singapore.