Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
- Page 547 of 779 - First - Home
The Same Phenomenon Occurs In Summer, In The Temperate
Zone; Nor Has It Escaped The Perception Of Astronomers, Who Often
Observe, in a serene sky, during three or four days successively,
clouds which have collected at the same part of
The firmament, take
the same direction, and dissolve at the same height; sometimes
before, sometimes after the passage of a star over the meridian,
consequently within a few minutes of the same point of true time.*
(* M. Arago and I paid a great deal of attention to this phenomenon
during a long series of observations made in the year 1809 and
1810, at the Observatory of Paris, with the view of verifying the
declination of the stars.)
The earthquake of the 4th of November, the first I had felt, made
the greater impression on me, as it was accompanied with remarkable
meteorological variations. It was, moreover, a positive movement
upward and downward, and not a shock by undulation. I did not then
imagine, that after a long abode on the table-lands of Quito and
the coasts of Peru, I should become almost as familiar with the
abrupt movements of the ground as we are in Europe with the sound
of thunder. In the city of Quito, we never thought of rising from
our beds when, during the night, subterraneous rumblings
(bramidos), which seem always to come from the volcano of
Pichincha, announced a shock, the force of which, however, is
seldom in proportion to the intensity of the noise.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 547 of 779
Words from 148764 to 149013
of 211363
