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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The
Inhabitants Of Cumana Dreaded The Valley Of Caracas, On Account Of
Its Damp And Variable Climate, And Its Gloomy
And misty sky; whilst
the inhabitants of the temperate valley regarded Cumana as a town
whose inhabitants incessantly inhaled a
Burning atmosphere, and
whose soil was periodically agitated by violent commotions.
Unmindful of the overthrow of Riobamba and other very elevated
towns, and not aware that the peninsula of Araya, composed of
mica-slate, shares the commotions of the calcareous coast of
Cumana, well-informed persons imagined they discerned security in
the structure of the primitive rocks of Caracas, as well as in the
elevated situation of this valley. Religious ceremonies celebrated
at La Guayra, and even in the capital, in the middle of the night,*
doubtless called to mind the fact that the province of Venezuela
had been subject at intervals to earthquakes; but dangers of rare
occurrence are slightly feared. (* For instance, the nocturnal
procession of the 21st of October, instituted in commemoration of
the great earthquake which took place on that day of the month, at
one o'clock in the morning, in 1778. Other very violent shocks were
those of 1641, 1703, and 1802.) However, in the year 1811, fatal
experience destroyed the illusion of theory and of popular opinion.
Caracas, situated in the mountains, three degrees west of Cumana,
and five degrees west of the volcanoes of the Caribbee islands, has
suffered greater shocks than were ever experienced on the coast of
Paria or New Andalusia.
At my arrival in Terra Firma, I was struck with the connection
between the destruction of Cumana on the 14th of December, 1797,
and the eruption of the volcanoes in the smaller West India
Islands. This connection was again manifest in the destruction of
Caracas on the 26th of March, 1812. The volcano of Guadaloupe
seemed in 1797 to have exercised a reaction on the coasts of
Cumana. Fifteen years later, it was a volcano situated nearer the
continent (that of St. Vincent), which appeared to have extended
its influence as far as Caracas and the banks of Apure. Possibly,
at both those periods, the centre of the explosion was, at an
immense depth, equally distant from the regions towards which the
motion was propagated at the surface of the globe.
From the beginning of 1811 to 1813, a vast superficies of the
earth,* (* Between latitudes 5 and 36 degrees north, and 31 and 91
degrees west longitude from Paris.) bound by the meridian of the
Azores, the valley of the Ohio, the Cordilleras of New Grenada, the
coasts of Venezuela, and the volcanoes of the smaller West India
Islands, was shaken throughout its whole extent, by commotions
which may be attributed to subterranean fires. The following series
of phenomena seems to indicate communications at enormous
distances. On the 30th of January, 1811, a submarine volcano broke
out near the island of St. Michael, one of the Azores. At a place
where the sea was sixty fathoms deep, a rock made its appearance
above the surface of the waters. The heaving-up of the softened
crust of the globe appears to have preceded the eruption of flame
at the crater, as had already been observed at the volcanoes of
Jorullo in Mexico, and on the appearance of the little island of
Kameni, near Santorino. The new islet of the Azores was at first a
mere shoal; but on the 15th of June, an eruption, which lasted six
days, enlarged its extent, and carried it progressively to the
height of fifty toises above the surface of the sea. This new land,
of which captain Tillard took possession in the name of the British
government, giving it the name of Sabrina Island, was nine hundred
toises in diameter. It has again, it seems, been swallowed up by
the ocean. This is the third time that submarine volcanoes have
presented this extraordinary spectacle near the island of St.
Michael; and, as if the eruptions of these volcanoes were subject
to periodical recurrence, owing to a certain accumulation of
elastic fluids, the island raised up has appeared at intervals of
ninety-one or ninety-two years.* (* Malte-Brun, Geographie
Universelle. There is, however, some doubt respecting the eruption
of 1628, to which some accounts assign the date of 1638. The rising
always happened near the island of St. Michael, though not
identically on the same spot. It is remarkable that the small
island of 1720 reached the same elevation as the island of Sabrina
in 1811.)
At the time of the appearance of the new island of Sabrina, the
smaller West India Islands, situated eight hundred leagues
south-west of the Azores, experienced frequent earthquakes. More
than two hundred shocks were felt from the month of May 1811, to
April 1812, at St. Vincent; one of the three islands in which there
are still active volcanoes. The commotion was not circumscribed to
the insular portion of eastern America; and from the 16th of
December, 1811, till the year 1813, the earth was almost
incessantly agitated in the valleys of the Mississippi, the
Arkansas river, and the Ohio. The oscillations were more feeble on
the east of the Alleghanies, than to the west of these mountains,
in Tennessee and Kentucky. They were accompanied by a great
subterranean noise, proceeding from the south-west. In some places
between New Madrid and Little Prairie, as at the Saline, north of
Cincinnati, in latitude 37 degrees 45 minutes, shocks were felt
every day, nay almost every hour, during several months. The whole
of these phenomena continued from the 16th of December 1811, till
the year 1813. The commotion, confined at first to the south, in
the valley of the lower Mississippi, appeared to advance slowly
northward.
Precisely at the period when this long series of earthquakes
commenced in the Transalleghanian States (in the month of December
1811), the town of Caracas felt the first shock in calm and serene
weather. This coincidence of phenomena was probably not accidental;
for it must be borne in mind that, notwithstanding the distance
which separates these countries, the low grounds of Louisiana and
the coasts of Venezuela and Cumana belong to the same basin, that
of the Gulf of Mexico.
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