This is a dozen years old (and 140 years old), so you [a friend, KH] probably know it, but on the off chance you don’t: Gerard Manley Hopkins describing Krakatoa in Nature magazine?! The way he mixes aesthetic and technical discourses is wild, like melding a compass, a clock, and a hand as visual tropes: “Above the green in turn appeared a red glow, broader and burlier in make; it was softly brindled, and in the ribs or bars the colour was rosier, in the channels where the blue of the sky shone through it was a mallow colour. Above this was a vague lilac. The red was first noticed 45º above the horizon, and spokes or beams could be seen in it, compared by one beholder to a man’s open hand. By 4.45 the red had driven out the green, and, fusing with the remains of the orange, reached the horizon.” But maybe it’s Volcanological History 101, dunno. 🌞