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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At Naples And At
Messina, At The Foot Of Cotopaxi And Of Tunguragua, Earthquakes Are
Dreaded Only When Vapours And
Flames do not issue from the craters.
In the kingdom of Quito, the great catastrophe of Riobamba led
several well-
Informed persons to think that that country would be
less frequently disturbed, if the subterranean fire should break
the porphyritic dome of Chimborazo; and if that colossal mountain
should become a burning volcano. At all times analogous facts have
led to the same hypotheses. The Greeks, who, like ourselves,
attributed the oscillations of the ground to the tension of elastic
fluids, cited in favour of their opinion, the total cessation of
the shocks at the island of Euboea, by the opening of a crevice in
the Lelantine plain.* (* "The shocks ceased only when a crevice,
which ejected a river of fiery mud, opened in the plain of
Lelantum, near Chalcis." - Strabo.)
The phenomena of volcanoes, and those of earthquakes, have been
considered of late as the effects of voltaic electricity, developed
by a particular disposition of heterogeneous strata. It cannot be
denied, that often, when violent shocks succeed each other within
the space of a few hours, the electricity of the air sensibly
increases at the instant the ground is most agitated; but to
explain this phenomenon, it is unnecessary to recur to an
hypothesis, which is in direct contradiction to everything hitherto
observed respecting the structure of our planet, and the
disposition of its strata.
CHAPTER 1.5.
PENINSULA OF ARAYA.
SALT-MARSHES.
RUINS OF THE CASTLE OF SANTIAGO.
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