The vegetation of Krakatoa was completely exterminated in 1883 by a thick coat of red-hot pumice.
Later followed the appearance of lights; quasi-human voices; musical sounds, produced, it is said, without instruments; the "materialization" or presence in material form of what seemed to be human hands and faces, and ultimately of complete figures, alleged to be not those of any person present, and sometimes claimed by witnesses as deceased relatives; "psychography," or "direct writing and drawing," asserted to be done without human intervention; "spirit-photography," or the appearance on photographic plates of human and other forms when no counterpart was visible before the camera to any but specially endowed seers; 3 unfastening of cords and bonds; elongation of the medium's body; handling of red-hot coals; and the apparent passage of solids through solids without disintegration.
When passed with carbon dioxide through a red-hot tube it yields carbon oxysulphide, COS (C. Winkler), and when passed over sodamide it yields ammonium thiocyanate.
In 1862 Fleck passed a mixture of steam, nitrogen and carbon monoxide over red-hot lime, whilst in 1904 Woltereck induced combination by passing steam and air over red-hot iron oxide (peat is used in practice).
It does not support the combustion of a taper, but burning phosphorus and red-hot carbon will continue to burn in the gas.
