observed, was fine and calm; and the commotions did not recommence till after the 27th. They were then attended with a very loud and long-continued subterranean noise. The inhabitants of Caraccas wandered into the country; but the villages and farms having suffered as much as the town, they could find no shelter till they were beyond the mountains of Los Teques, in the valleys of Aragua, and in the Llanos or savannahs. No less than fifteen oscillations were often felt in one day. On the 5th of April there was almost as violent an earthquake, as that which overthrew the capital. During several hours, the ground was in a state of perpetual undulation. Large masses of earth fell in the mountains; and enormous rocks were detached from the Silla of Caraccas. It was even asserted and believed that the two domes of the Silla sunk fifty or sixty toises; but this assertion is founded on no measurement whatever.

While violent commotions were felt at the same time in the valley of the Mississippi, in the island of St. Vincent, and in the province of Venezuela, the inhabitants of Caraccas, of Calabozo, situated in the midst of the steppes, and on the borders of the Rio Apura, in a space of 4000 square leagues, were terrified on the 30th of April, 1812, by a subterraneous noise, which resembled frequent discharges of the largest cannon. This noise began at two in the morning. It was accompanied by no shock; and, what is very remarkable, it was as loud on the coast as at eighty leagues distance inland. It was every where believed to be transmitted through the air; and was so far from being thought a subterraneous noise, that at Caraccas, as well as at Calabozo, preparations were made to put the place into a state of defence against an enemy, who seemed to be advancing with heavy artillery. Mr. Palacio, crossing the Rio Apura near the junction of the Rio Nula, was told by the inhabitants that the "firing of cannon" had been heard as distinctly at the western extremity of the province of Varinas, as at the port of La Guayra to the north of the chain of the coast.

The day on which the inhabitants of Terra Firma were alarmed by a subterraneous noise, was that on which happened the eruption of the volcano in the island of St. Vincent. This mountain, near five hundred toises high, had not thrown out any lava since the year 1718. Scarcely was any smoke perceived to issue from its top, when, in the month of May, 1811, frequent shocks announced that the volcanic fire was either rekindled, or directed anew toward that part of the West Indies. The first eruption did not take place till the 27th of April, 1812, at noon. It was only an ejection of

ashes, but attended with a tremendous noise. On the 30th, the lava passed the brink of the crater, and, after a course of four hours, reached the sea. The noise of the explosion resembled that of alternate discharges of very large cannou and of musketry; and, what is well worthy of remark, it seemed much louder at sea, at a great distance from the island, than in sight of land, and near the burning volcano.

The distance in a straight line from the volcano of St. Vincent to the Rio Apura, near the mouth of the Nula, is 210 nautical leagues. The explosions were consequently heard at a distance equal to that between Vesuvius and Paris. This phenomenon, connected with a great number of facts observed in the Cordilleras of the Andes, shows how much more extensive the subterranean sphere of activity of a volcano is, than we are disposed to admit from the small changes effected at the surface of the globe. The detonations heard during whole days together in the New World, 80, 100, or even 200 leagues distant from a crater, do not reach us by the propagation of sound through the air; they are transmitted to us by the ground. The little town of Honda, on the banks of the Magdalena, is not less than 145 leagues from Cotopaxi; and yet in the great explosions of this vol→ cano, in 1744, a subterraneous noise was heard at Honda, and supposed to be discharges of heavy artillery. The monks of St. Francis spread the news, that the town of Carthagena was bombarded by the English; and the intelligence was believed. Now the volcano of Cotopaxi is a cone, more than 1800 toises above the basin of Honda, and rises from a tableland, the elevation of which is more than 1500 toises above the valley of the Magdalena. In the colossal mountains of Quito, of the provinces of Los Pastos, and of Popayan, crevices and valleys without number are interposed. It cannot be admitted, under these circumstances, that the noise could be transmitted through the air, or by the superior surface of the globe, and that it came from that point, where the cone and crater of Cotopaxi are placed. It appears probable, that the higher part of the kingdom of Quito and the neighbouring Cordilleras, far from being a group of distinct volcanoes, constitute a single swollen mass, an enormous volcanic wall, stretch from south to north, and the crest of which exhibits a surface of more than six hundred square leagues. Cotopaxi, Tunguragua, Antisana, and Pichincha, are placed on this same vault, on this raised ground. The fire issues sometimes from one, sometimes from another of these summits. The obstructed craters appear to be extinguished volcanoes; but we may presume, that, while Cotopaxi or Tunguragua have only one or two eruptions in the course of a century, the fire

is not less continually active under the town of Quito, under Pichincha and Imbaburu.

Advancing toward the north, we find, between the volcano of Cotopaxi and the town of Honda, two other systems of volcanic mountains, those of Los Pastos and of Popayan. The connection of these systems was manifested in the Andes in an incontestible manner by a phenomenon, which I have already had occasion to notice. Since the month of November, 1796, a thick column of smoke had issued from the volcano of Pasto, west of the town of that name, and near the valley of Rio Guaytara. The mouths of the volcano are lateral, and placed on its western declivity, yet during three successive months the column rose so much higher than the Iridge of the mountain, that it was constantly visible to the inhabitants of the town of Pasto. They related to us their astonishment, when, on the 4th of February, 1797, they observed the smoke disappear in an instant, without feeling any shock whatever. At that very moment, sixty-five leagues to the south, between Chimborazo, Tunguragua, and the Altar (Capac Urcu,) the town of Riobamba was overthrown by the most dreadful earthquake of which tradition has transmitted the history. Is it possible to doubt from this coincidence of phenomena, that the vapours issuing from the small apertures or ventanillas of the volcano of Pasto, had an influence on the pressure of those elastic fluids, which shook the ground of the kingdom of Quito, and destroyed in a few minutes thirty or forty thousand inhabitants?

In order to explain these great effects of volcanic reactions, and to prove, that the group or system of the volcanoes of the West India Islands may sometimes shake the continent, it was necessary to cite the Cordillera of the Andes. Geological reasoning can be supported only on the analogy of facts that are recent, and consequently well authenticated: and in what other region of the globe could we find greater, and at the same time more varied volcanic phenomena, than in that double chain of mountains heaved up by fire? in that land, where nature has covered every summit and every valley with her wonders? If we consider a burning crater only as an insulated phenomenon, if we satisfy ourselves with examining the mass of stony substances which it has thrown up, the volcanic action at the surface

of the globe will appear neither very powerful nor very extensive. But the image of this action swells in the mind, when we study the relations that link together volcanoes of the same group; for instance, those of Naples and Sicily, of the Canary Islands, of the Azores, of the Caribbee Islands, of Mexico, of Guatimala, and of the table-land of Quito; when we examine either the reactions of these different systems of volcanoes on one another, or the distance to which, by subterranean communications, they at the same moment shake the earth *.

Such is M. Humboldt's history of the earthquake at the Caraccas: the following account of one nearer home, resembles the trembling of the aspin leaf in comparison of that in the New World.

Earthquake in the North of Scotland, in 1816.

15. On Tuesday, the 13th of August, at 25 minutes past 10, p. m. (the evening being uncommonly calm; the thermometer at 60 degrees, and the barometer at 29.8,) a violent shock of an earthquake was felt, extending from north-west to southeast, which lasted for about ten seconds. It was accompanied by a rumbling sound, which appeared

*The following is the series of phenomena which M. Humboldt supposes to have had the same origin:

27th September, 1796. Eruption in the West India Islands. Volcano of Guadaloupe.-November, 1796. The volcano of Pasto begins to emit smoke.--14th of December, 1796. Destruction of Cumana-4th of February, 1797. Destruction of Riobamba.-30th of January, 1811. Appearance of Sabrina Island, in the Azores. It increases particularly on the 15th of June, 1811.-May, 1811. Beginning of the earthquakes in the Island St. Vincent, which lasted till May, 1812.-16th of December, 1811. Beginning of the commotions in the Valley of the Mississippi and the Ohio, which lasted till 1813. -December, 1811. Earthquake at Caraccas.--26th of March, 1812. Destruction of Caraccas. Earthquakes which continued till 1813.-30th April, 1812. Eruption of the volcano at St. Vincent's; and the same day, subterranean noises at Caraccas, and on the banks of the Apura.

at first to come from underneath, but immediately afterwards resembled the sound of a coach and four, driving full speed along a street; and in a second after, it appeared to come from the roofs of the houses, and as if a number of persons were forcibly bursting open the doors. Dogs howled violently, and appeared sensible of something supernatural. In one house, two canary birds in a cage, were so much frightened, as to drop down dead,

;

The houses in many towns, shook with great violence some were rent asunder; chimneys were thrown down, windows and glasses were broken, and the public and private bells added an incessant clangour to the general confusion.

To the westward, the shock was very violent. At Inverness, the beautiful spire of the gaol and courthouse was thrown about eight inches off the perpendicular, for about twelve feet at the top, and only supported from falling by a long iron rod, to which the weathercock is attached.

Many chimneys were thrown down, no fewer than seven in one court, and several houses rent from top to bottom.

In the district of country west from Inverness, called the Aird, the shock was still more violent; the houses of Phopachy, Bogsey, &c. were completely rent from top to bottom. Fortunately, no lives were lost, but the families were obliged to leave them immediately. The east end of the old priory of Beemly was likewise thrown down.

At Fort George, the ramparts shook so violently, that the sentinels on duty at the main gate, conceived an attempt was made to force it open, and, under this idea, challenged the supposed intruders. The range of front buildings occupied as the governor's, lieutenant-governor's, and the other staff-officers' houses, appeared to the soldiers on guard to be bowed violently backward and forward, or, as one of them expressed it, to be shaken like a strong ash-tree in a violent storm. The sea appeared much agitated, and, at the ferry of Kessoc, the boatmen, who were at the time crossing it, experienced three violent waves, such as must have sunk the