Science: Yeasting Krakatoa

Radio warnings, sent by the Dutch government, are now scurrying around the East Indies warning the Javanese and Sumatrans to beware Krakatoa. The small island volcano in the Sunda Strait, between Java and Sumatra, is yeasting to explode again. Already it has drooled a small land mass into the adjacent water. At any time it may blow up as it did in 1883.

That explosion—many people can remember the fury—was the most violent in modern times, reports the National Geographic Society. It "made the biggest noise" ever heard by man. Three thousand miles away, on Rodriguez Island near Madagascar, its sound roared four hours after the happening. In South America, 10,000 miles away, the tide was raised. Waves around the East Indies archipelago were 100 ft. high and went 400 miles an hour. Volcanic dust blew 20 miles high; swift upper winds carried the dust around the earth in 20 days. Sunlight was murky; sunsets were apocalyptic.