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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And The Farmer, An Intelligent Man, Equally Acquainted With The
Localities Of The Province, Discussed, In The Manner
Of the
Creoles, the dangers to which the town of Cumanacoa would be
exposed if the Cuchivano became an active
Volcano, or, as they
expressed it, "se veniesse a reventar." It appeared to them
evident, that since the great earthquakes of Quito and Cumana in
1797, New Andalusia was every day more and more undermined by
subterranean fires. They cited the flames which had been seen to
issue from the earth at Cumana; and the shocks felt in places where
heretofore the ground had never been shaken. They recollected that
at Macarapan, sulphurous emanations had been frequently perceived
for some months past. We were struck with these facts, upon which
were founded predictions that have since been almost all realized.
Enormous convulsions of the earth took place at Caracas in 1812,
and proved how tumultuously nature is agitated in the north-east
part of Terra Firma.
But what is the cause of the luminous phenomena which are observed
in the Cuchivano? The column of air which rises from the mouth of a
burning volcano* is sometimes observed to shine with a splendid
light. (* We must not confound this very rare phenomenon with the
glimmering commonly observed a few toises above the brink of a
crater, and which (as I remarked at Mount Vesuvius in 1805) is only
the reflection of great masses of inflamed scoria, thrown up
without sufficient force to pass the mouth of the volcano.) This
light, which is believed to be owing to the hydrogen gas, was
observed from Chillo, on the summit of the Cotopaxi, at a time when
the mountain seemed in the greatest repose.
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