Notwithstanding The Intimate Connection Manifested In The Action Of The Volcanoes Of The Smaller West India Islands And The Earthquakes Of Terra Firma, It Often Happens That Shocks Felt In The Volcanic Archipelago Are Not Propagated To The Island Of Trinidad, Or To The Coasts Of Caracas And Cumana.

This phenomenon is in no way surprising:

Even in the Caribbees the commotions are often confined to one place. The great eruption of the volcano in St. Vincent's did not occasion an earthquake at Martinique or Guadaloupe. Loud explosions were heard there as well as at Venezuela, but the ground was not convulsed.

These explosions must not be confounded with the rolling noise which everywhere precedes the slightest commotions; they are often heard on the banks of the Orinoco, and (as we were assured by persons living on the spot) between the Rio Arauca and Cuchivero. Father Morello relates that at the Mission of Cabruta the subterranean noise so much resembles discharges of small cannon (pedreros) that it has seemed as if a battle were being fought at a distance. On the 21st of October, 1766, the day of the terrible earthquake which desolated the province of New Andalusia, the ground was simultaneously shaken at Cumana, at Caracas, at Maracaybo, and on the banks of the Casanare, the Meta, the Orinoco, and the Ventuario. Father Gili has described these commotions at the Mission of Encaramada, a country entirely granitic, where they were accompanied by loud explosions. Great fallings-in of the earth took place in the mountain Paurari, and near the rock Aravacoto a small island disappeared in the Orinoco.

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