Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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In Italy For Instance, The Sirocco And Earthquakes Are
Suspected To Have Some Connection; And In London, The Frequency Of
Falling-Stars, And Those Southern Lights Which Have Since Been
Often Observed By Mr. Dalton, Were Considered As The Forerunners Of
Those Shocks Which Were Felt From 1748 To 1756.
On days when the earth is shaken by violent shocks, the regularity
of the horary variations of the barometer is not disturbed within
the tropics.
I had opportunities of verifying this observation at
Cumana, at Lima, and at Riobamba; and it is the more worthy of
attention, as at St. Domingo, (in the town of Cape Francois,) it is
asserted, that a water-barometer sank two inches and a half
immediately before the earthquake of 1770. It is also related,
that, at the time of the destruction of Oran, a druggist fled with
his family, because, observing accidentally, a few minutes before
the earthquake, the height of the mercury in his barometer, he
perceived that the column sank in an extraordinary manner. I know
not whether we can give credit to this story; but as it is nearly
impossible to examine the variations of the weight of the
atmosphere during the shocks, we must be satisfied with observing
the barometer before or after these phenomena have taken place.
We can scarcely doubt, that the earth, when opened and agitated by
shocks, spreads occasionally gaseous emanations through the
atmosphere, in places remote from the mouths of volcanoes not
extinct. At Cumana, it has already been observed that flames and
vapours mixed with sulphurous acid spring up from the most arid
soil. In other parts of the same province, the earth ejects water
and petroleum. At Riobamba, a muddy and inflammable mass, called
moya, issues from crevices that close again, and accumulates into
elevated hills. At about seven leagues from Lisbon, near Colares,
during the terrible earthquake of the 1st of November, 1755, flames
and a column of thick smoke were seen to issue from the flanks of
the rocks of Alvidras, and, according to some witnesses, from the
bosom of the sea.
Elastic fluids thrown into the atmosphere may act locally on the
barometer, not by their mass, which is very small, compared to the
mass of the atmosphere, but because, at the moment of great
explosions, an ascending current is probably formed, which
diminishes the pressure of the air. I am inclined to think that in
the majority of earthquakes nothing escapes from the agitated
earth; and that, when gaseous emanations and vapours are observed,
they oftener accompany or follow, than precede the shocks. This
circumstance would seem to explain the mysterious influence of
earthquakes in equinoctial America, on the climate, and on the
order of the dry and rainy seasons. If the earth generally act on
the air only at the moment of the shocks, we can conceive why a
sensible meteorological change so rarely precedes those great
revolutions of nature.
The hypothesis according to which, in the earthquakes of Cumana,
elastic fluids tend to escape from the surface of the soil, seems
confirmed by the great noise which is heard during the shocks at
the borders of the wells in the plain of Charas.
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