4. We remained on deck all night and watched. The din increased till we could with difficulty hear one another's voices. Dawn approached, and when the rays of the sun fell on the shores of Krakatoa, we saw them reflected from what we thought was a river, and we resolved to steam into its mouth and disembark.

5. When we came to within three-quarters of a mile of the shore, we discovered that what we supposed to be a river was a torrent of molten sulphur. The smell almost overpowered us. We steamed away to the windward, and made for the other side of the island.

6. This island, though volcanic, had up till now been quiet for at least a century. It was eight or ten miles long and four wide, and was covered with forests of fine mahogany and rosewood trees. It was inhabited by a few fishermen, but we found no signs of these people. The land, down to the water's edge, was covered with powdered pumice stone, which rained down from the clouds around the great column of fire. Everything with life had already disappeared from the landscape, which was covered with a steaming mass of stones and ashes.

7. Several of us landed and began walking toward the volcano. We sank deep in the soft pumice, which blistered our feet with its heat. I climbed painfully upwards toward the crater, in order to measure it with my sextant; but in a short time the heat melted the mercury off the mirror of the instrument. I was then half a mile from the crater.

8. As I was returning to the shore, I saw the bottom of each footstep I had made on my way up glowing red with the heat from beneath. We photographed the scene from the deck of the steamer, where the fire hose was kept playing

constantly, wetting the rigging and everything about the ship to prevent her from taking fire.

9. The steamer then returned to Batavia, and I went to reside at Anjer. From my villa on the hillside a mile inland, I could see Krakatoa, thirty miles away, belching out its never ending eruption. We supposed that it would go on till it burned itself out, and that then it would become quiet again. But in this we were mistaken.

10. On Sunday morning, the 12th of August, nearly three months later, I was sitting on the veranda of my house taking my morning cup of tea. I saw the fishing boats lying at anchor in the bay, the fishermen themselves being on shore at rest. As my gaze rested on the boats, I suddenly became aware that they were all beginning to move rapidly in one direction. Then in an instant, to my intense surprise, they all disappeared.

11. I ran farther up the hillside to get a better view, and looked far out to sea. Instantly a great glare of fire right in the midst of the sea caught my eye. All the way across the bay and the strait, in a line of flame reaching to Krakatoa itself, the bottom of the sea seemed to have cracked open so that the subterraneous fires were belching forth. On either side the waters were pouring into this gulf with a tremendous noise, but the fire was not extinguished.

12. The hissing roar brought out the people of Anjer in excited crowds. My eyes were turned away for a moment as I beckoned to some one, and during that moment came a terrible, deafening explosion. It stunned me; and when I was able again to turn my eyes toward the bay, I could see nothing. The whole scene was shrouded in darkness, from amid which came cries and groans, the creaking of breaking

beams in the houses, and, above all, the roar of the breakers on the shore. The city of Anjer, with its sixty thousand people, had been engulfed!

13. I afterwards found that the water was one hundred feet deep where the city of Anjer had been, and that the coast line had moved one and a half miles inland. A big island in the strait had been split in two, with a wide passage between its parts. An island to the northwest of Krakatoa had wholly disappeared. The air was filled with minute particles of dust, which after some weeks spread even to Europe and America. What the causes of such a tremendous convulsion may have been, it is quite impossible accurately to say.

EXERCISE

1. Express in as few words as possible the topic of each of the thirteen paragraphs just read.1

2. Write these topics in their order and tell the story from them in your own words.

3. Which one of the thirteen paragraphs contains the most important fact?

1 NOTE TO TEACHER.-Do not require too great accuracy or condensation in exercises of this sort. Each pupil has or should have his own point of view. Absolute uniformity, therefore, should not be expected of pupils in the finding or in the phrasing of paragraph topics. If the pupil has weighed carefully the content of the paragraph, and if the topic, as he phrases it, is the nucleus around which the paragraph most readily groups itself in his mind, the teacher should hesitate to criticise.

Write a paragraph comparing the two buildings represented on this page.

SECTION 27

LETTER-WRITING

The charm of letter-writing is to write as you would talk. Let your language be so natural and unaffected that you would not feel ashamed if you were present when your letter was read. If you are writing a business letter, make it brief and to the point. In every case be courteous, even if you are replying to a brusque or rude letter. Remember, too, that what you have learned about the paragraph applies as much to letters as to any other form of composition.

The Parts of a Letter.

Read carefully the following letter:

347 Church Street,

Greensboro, N. C.,

Feb. 10, 1906.

B. F. Johnson Publishing Co.,

Eleventh and Cary Streets,

Richmond, Va.

Gentlemen,

Enclosed you will find a post-office order for $1.50 for which please send me the first four Readers in your series of

Graded Classics.

Very truly yours,

[Miss] Mary L. Jones.