Choking The Trees To Death

By davidbunch

A few years later, climbing plants were already choking the trees to death and transforming the new forest into a tropical jungle complete with orchids, butterflies, snakes, and numberless birds and bats, and with a small lake. Krakatoa became a naturalist's paradise; the Dutch made it a Nature reserve and allowed no one but accredited scientists to set foot on the island. The naturalists worked out a complete inventory of life on Krakatoa. They counted the steadily growing number of new arrivals and observed how they lived with each other and fought each other. Then, one day, the scientists discovered that still another sort of life was stirring on Krakatoa—life in the earth itself. The old volcano was not dead.

Deep down under its rocky foundations a pocket of lava were seeking an outlet for its energies. The bottom of the inland sea was heaving and buckling again. A submarine cone was building up; on January 26, 1928, it broke the surface and showed its top, a flat, ugly island a few hundred feet across, which the waves washed away a few days later. A year passed. Then, suddenly, not far from the place where Danan and Perboewatan had first appeared, a geyser began to spout steam and ashes. Sulphurous fumes were drifting over the ocean. Again the sea was covered with dead fish floating belly-up. The scientists measured the temperature of the water a hundred yards from the geyser. It was 30° F. warmer than the surrounding sea. The new geyser is still there. Its identity has been established; it is a portion of the ancient crater rim with mud deposited on its top and flanks and a flue in its center—a safety valve for the stupendous pressure generated by the lava pocket underneath. The natives call the new volcano "Anak Krakatoa," the "Child of Krakatoa." No name could be more ominous.

Now that the guns are stilled and men fly on missions of peace, the question arises as to what war did to the birds of sea, land and air in the Pacific. Much of the havoc of war is indirect, and only a careful study can measure its total effect. However, on the basis of certain facts, plus experience and conjecture, we can arrive at some conclusions. These are both interesting and important. From time immemorial most of the central Pacific islands have been nesting places for myriad sea birds. Guided by hereditary impulses, these birds returned, year after year, to the island of their original nest. There was virtually no month in the year in which birds of some species were not on these islands. These birds were threatened, in 1939, when naval bases were established on a number of low-lying coral islands. Then came war itself, with the necessity for speed and extensive development that could reckon with nothing save the goal of victory. Such activity could not be reconciled with the normal routine of great colonies of birds carrying on their life cycles in vast isolation. Into this peaceful avian picture came man and his machines.

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