The Andes in Eruption Eight seemingly extinct volcanoes on the
Chilean side of the Andes, a hundred miles south of the Transandine Railway, have become active in a very unpleasant fashion. Like Krakatoa, the East Indian volcano which blew up fifty years ago, they are emitting dense volumes of ashes. Krakatoa's dust made European sunsets brilliant. for long after. The ash from Tinguiririca and its neighbours has blown across the South America continent and is falling on Buenos Aires and Montevideo, nearly a thousand miles from its source, as well as on the narrow Chilean coastland. It is not difficult to imagine the extreme discomfort of men and animals who find the sky darkened and the air clogged with gritty particles. Pliny the younger described the horror of his uncle's experience in the year 79 when Herculaneum and Pompeii were blotted out by Vesuvius. Pliny, the admiral, and his escort had to protect their heads with pillows as they ran from the dark cloud," which came rolling ifter us like a torrent" to the shore where the admiral fell dead. Many hapless folk living on either slope of the Andes have, it is to be feared, shared Pliny's fate.
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