Object Status:
Unlocated
Accession Date:
June 8, 1802
Primary Source Reference:
Peale Museum Accessions Book, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, p. 4
Notes:
The pumice may have come from the Sunda Strait between the Indonesian islands of Java and Sumatra. It is dotted by a number of islands, many of which are volcanic in origin. The greatest eruption was the later one of Krakatoa, which exploded in 1883 in one of the deadliest and most destructive eruptions in recorded history, producing an intense pumice fall.
The donor was Capt. Joshua Rowley Watson (1772-1818), a British naval officer who had family in Philadelphia. See Kathleen A. Foster, Captain Watson's Travels in America: The Sketchbooks and Diary of Joshua Rowley Watson, 1772-1818 (Philadelphia, 1997).
