IF EGMONT WOKE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXII, Issue 203, 20 October 1900, Page 4

IF EGMONT WOKE.

In a recent arbicle we (Press) suggested (tome of (he possible effects oa the Canterbury coast of a tidal wave, ench as lately devastated Galveston. Mr. firnest Faveno does the same for Sydney, the only difference being that he bases his suggestions on the p'oß6ible eruption of Mour,t E.'tnont on a scale similar to that of Krakotia, between Java and Sunmtra, seventsen year* ago. lb is a distinctly unpleasing sugg stion, for though Mount Egmont, as a \o'eano. teams as dead as Julius Qx,&r, it is jait possible that it is no deader than Krakatoa proved to be. Th id volcano had been lo all appearances dead for two hundred yi ars, no eruption having taken pkce since 1680 But in 1883 it awoke from it) long sleep, and s'e*dily increase I in activity from May to August. lb became a poj u'ar excursion f om Babavis, for pleusure parties to visit the island. The end came on Augnsb 26. From t'.a'idayto the 28th tte Straiis of Sadda were veiled in a great darkness dusb and ashes covered the decks of ships sec res of tries avay, and for eagues the sea was thickly covered with flmting penrce. Appalling rounds from Krakaboa t rrified the dwellers on islands, as the vo'cano, wi h its dying i ff v% literally blew itself and the greater parb of the island to p : ejes. Bnt worse was to come. So tremendous hid been the effect of the erupticn, which altered the bed of bhe ooeao, and. was heard at places three thou mod miles distant, tbab a huge tidal wave was started, one of bhe greatest and mojb destructive cf which history holds recoid. lb swept*he shores of Jav» aid Suan.tr*, causing the loss of some tliog like 40000 lives, and the des bructiou of 300 villages. -'lt towel a Du'ch man-of-war one mile and threi quarters inland, and lefb her there, 30fb above Ihe of the eea. AtTeo'i Betong, on the Samatran coast, it mounted the hill on which the Residency stands, a hill 78ft> high, and reached within 9ft of the R sidency. Io one p'aie it is said tn have washed the h : U of Merak to the be ght of 115 ft." And then it tuted round the world, being fed almost everywhere on the globe, strongly ab a distance of at lea-1 7500 miles from . where it ttutrd. Auither effect of ih erupti n was s<on inthewonlrrfnl "after-glow*," which were caused by the duit frt.m the volcano held in suepension in ihi atmosphere, and which atdiffsrenb times for ab least thrre years irradiated the we! tern eky at and after tm.s t io g'owing crimson and gold. "Now tupposinp," says Mr. F*venc, ",hib Mount Mgmonb •iwoke from bis slumber and began to rival tin atuirr t Krakafcnn," what would happ-n to Australia V And then, tf n-pointing oub that Sydney is on!) G7b above sea leva', and that the tH : .-.! wave which such an explosion wo'.li giuorito «oild mmt with no ob: true ion in to the New South Wales com, he sees n< thing for it bob the ( total overwh«'ming of Sydney aDd Newcu-b'e, and a host r.f smaller placer. Ihao fe turo >f tbo disaster wou'd, however, >r üb'o vs litt'p, if MVnnt Egmont did emulate Kr katoa. The question in that c*so would be, where would Niw PijpuKjtith and bhe turroundin" di(.trer.s be } "Ask (,f the winds that far und wide, wiih fragments si re wed the tea."