Documentary on the Mt.Tambora Eruption

Tambora Crater Rim

A few days ago I came across and watched a documentary concerning the 1815 Tambora explosion and its impact on North America and Europe. The documentary is available on Hulu, as part of a series of Pure History Specials, and entitled "The Year Without A Summer."

I've outlined the basics facts of the explosion and its environmental impact in a prior post, so I won't repeat it here. Suffice it to say that the explosion at Tambora was probably the most violent volcanic explosion in the last couple thousand years. (Also one of the hottest--pyroclastic flows were hot enough to melt glass and almost instantly carbonize a person). It produced an ash plume more than 30 miles high, which spread through out the atmosphere, reducing temperatures by a few degrees Fahrenheit throughout the northern hemisphere. (It obviously had impacts in the middle and southern latitudes, but the historical records aren't as extant). In New England, the result was a drought combined with frosts and low temperatures through the summer of 1816. In Europe, the result was cooler temperatures and significant increases in rain. In both cases, crops would not grow or were destroyed. According to the documentary, an estimated 200,000 people died in Europe because of food shortages (the documentary explains that it is often difficult to determine deaths from famine precisely because most people don't die from starvation, but the lack of food makes them more susceptible to other illnesses which result in death; thus the death statistics are determined by looking at deaths during the given period and subtracting out the normal number of deaths).

Interesting to me is that while there were localized riots, and mob attacks in Europe--people thought increases in food prices was excessive, and so there apparently were attacks on bakers, as well as attacks on some of the landed gentry--there were no massive uprisings or collapse of governments. However, the researchers cited in the documentary believe that much of the social unrest in Europe following the Napoleonic wars, which has traditionally been given political roots, actually stemmed from poor economic conditions caused by the "year without a summer." 

I bring this up because in reading about the 14th Century's Black Death, I see similar themes. John Kelly's The Great Mortality gives one of the most detailed looks at the spread of the Black Death through Europe. Although the disease killed up to 50% in some regions--and although entire villages were wiped out by plague--it did not cause the collapse of civilization as we generally define that term. (It had long lasting social and economic impacts, and probably marks the demarcation between Medieval society and modern, so it probably marked the collapse of one "culture" or "civilization", as that term is used by Spengler, to be replaced by another). That does not mean that social order did not suffer--there were pogroms against Jews, which made convenient scapegoats (by this time, Europe had imported because of the Crusades the Islamic intolerance against Jews). But the courts, church, and other government/social bodies continued to operate.

Watching the documentary, my mind wondered to some of the signs of the endtimes given in Revelation. After the opening of the Seventh Seal, one of the events is:

 8 And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood;

(Rev. 8:8). Although today we can imagine this as a meteor, it may also represent a volcanic eruption. A surviving witness of the Tambora explosion--a native king that happened to survive--reported that when the volcano erupted, there were initially three plumes of fire shooting out of the top of the mountain (at that time, Tambora was the tallest mountain in Indonesia). The explosion was somewhat later. Although Tambora's blast appears to have been directed upward, it needn't be so. During the Mount St. Helen's eruption, the northeastern slope of the mountain collapsed, directing much of the ash plume and force of the explosion to the northeast (and sparing Portland). If one was presented with a volcano spewing a fiery plum as Tambora had initially, then exploding so that one slope sloughed off into the sea, it would match the description given by John in Revelations. 

Remember, though, that the events preceding the Second Coming are compared to birth pangs--intense, but of limited duration, and forgotten in the joy of a new baby. The joy of the Millenium will make the tribulations seems as naught.