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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It Is A
Generally Received Opinion At Cumana, That The Most Destructive
Earthquakes Are Announced By Very Feeble Oscillations, And By A
Hollow Sound, Which Does Not Escape The Observation Of Persons
Habituated To This Kind Of Phenomenon.
In those fatal moments the
cries of 'misericordia!
Tembla! tembla!'* are everywhere heard (*
"Mercy! the earthquake! the earthquake!" - See Tschudi's Travels in
Peru page 170.); and it rarely happens that a false alarm is given
by a native. Those who are most apprehensive attentively observe
the motions of dogs, goats, and swine. The last-mentioned animals,
endowed with delicate olfactory nerves, and accustomed to turn up
the earth, give warning of approaching danger by their restlessness
and their cries. We shall not attempt to decide, whether, being
nearer the surface of the ground, they are the first to hear the
subterraneous noise; or whether their organs receive the impression
of some gaseous emanation which issues from the earth. We cannot
deny the possibility of this latter cause. During my abode at Peru,
a fact was observed in the inland country, which has an analogy
with this kind of phenomenon, and which is not unfrequent. At the
end of violent earthquakes, the herbs that cover the savannahs of
Tucuman acquired noxious properties; an epidemic disorder broke out
among the cattle, and a great number of them appeared stupified or
suffocated by the deleterious vapours exhaled from the ground.
At Cumana, half an hour before the catastrophe of the 14th of
December, 1797, a strong smell of sulphur was perceived near the
hill of the convent of San Francisco; and on the same spot the
subterraneous noise, which seemed to proceed from south-east to
north-west, was loudest.
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