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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In Order To Follow A Plan Conformable To The End We Proposed In
This Work, We Shall Endeavour To Generalize Our Ideas, And To
Comprehend In One Point Of View Everything That Relates To These
Phenomena, So Terrific, And So Difficult To Explain.
If it be the
duty of the men of science who visit the Alps of Switzerland, or
the coasts
Of Lapland, to extend our knowledge respecting the
glaciers and the aurora borealis, it may be expected that a
traveller who has journeyed through Spanish America, should have
chiefly fixed his attention on volcanoes and earthquakes. Each part
of the globe is an object of particular study; and when we cannot
hope to penetrate the causes of natural phenomena, we ought at
least to endeavour to discover their laws, and distinguish, by the
comparison of numerous facts, that which is permanent and uniform
from that which is variable and accidental.
The great earthquakes, which interrupt the long series of slight
shocks, appear to have no regular periods at Cumana. They have
taken place at intervals of eighty, a hundred, and sometimes less
than thirty years; while on the coasts of Peru, for instance at
Lima, a certain regularity has marked the periods of the total
destruction of the city. The belief of the inhabitants in the
existence of this uniformity has a happy influence on public
tranquillity, and the encouragement of industry. It is generally
admitted, that it requires a sufficiently long space of time for
the same causes to act with the same energy; but this reasoning is
just only inasmuch as the shocks are considered as a local
phenomenon; and a particular focus, under each point of the globe
exposed to those great catastrophes, is admitted. Whenever new
edifices are raised on the ruins of the old, we hear from those who
refuse to build, that the destruction of Lisbon on the first day of
November, 1755, was soon followed by a second, and not less fatal
convulsion, on the 31st of March, 1761.
It is a very ancient opinion,* (* Aristotle de Meteor. lib. 2 (ed.
Duval, tome 1 page 798). Seneca Nat. Quaest. lib. 6 c. 12.) and one
that is commonly received at Cumana, Acapulco, and Lima, that a
perceptible connection exists between earthquakes and the state of
the atmosphere that precedes those phenomena. But from the great
number of earthquakes which I have witnessed to the north and south
of the equator; on the continent, and on the seas; on the coasts,
and at 2500 toises height; it appears to me that the oscillations
are generally very independent of the previous state of the
atmosphere. This opinion is entertained by a number of intelligent
residents of the Spanish colonies, whose experience extends, if not
over a greater space of the globe, at least over a greater number
of years, than mine. On the contrary, in parts of Europe where
earthquakes are rare compared to America, scientific observers are
inclined to admit an intimate connection between the undulations of
the ground, and certain meteors, which appear simultaneously with
them. In Italy for instance, the sirocco and earthquakes are
suspected to have some connection; and in London, the frequency of
falling-stars, and those southern lights which have since been
often observed by Mr. Dalton, were considered as the forerunners of
those shocks which were felt from 1748 to 1756.
On days when the earth is shaken by violent shocks, the regularity
of the horary variations of the barometer is not disturbed within
the tropics. I had opportunities of verifying this observation at
Cumana, at Lima, and at Riobamba; and it is the more worthy of
attention, as at St. Domingo, (in the town of Cape Francois,) it is
asserted, that a water-barometer sank two inches and a half
immediately before the earthquake of 1770. It is also related,
that, at the time of the destruction of Oran, a druggist fled with
his family, because, observing accidentally, a few minutes before
the earthquake, the height of the mercury in his barometer, he
perceived that the column sank in an extraordinary manner. I know
not whether we can give credit to this story; but as it is nearly
impossible to examine the variations of the weight of the
atmosphere during the shocks, we must be satisfied with observing
the barometer before or after these phenomena have taken place.
We can scarcely doubt, that the earth, when opened and agitated by
shocks, spreads occasionally gaseous emanations through the
atmosphere, in places remote from the mouths of volcanoes not
extinct. At Cumana, it has already been observed that flames and
vapours mixed with sulphurous acid spring up from the most arid
soil. In other parts of the same province, the earth ejects water
and petroleum. At Riobamba, a muddy and inflammable mass, called
moya, issues from crevices that close again, and accumulates into
elevated hills. At about seven leagues from Lisbon, near Colares,
during the terrible earthquake of the 1st of November, 1755, flames
and a column of thick smoke were seen to issue from the flanks of
the rocks of Alvidras, and, according to some witnesses, from the
bosom of the sea.
Elastic fluids thrown into the atmosphere may act locally on the
barometer, not by their mass, which is very small, compared to the
mass of the atmosphere, but because, at the moment of great
explosions, an ascending current is probably formed, which
diminishes the pressure of the air. I am inclined to think that in
the majority of earthquakes nothing escapes from the agitated
earth; and that, when gaseous emanations and vapours are observed,
they oftener accompany or follow, than precede the shocks. This
circumstance would seem to explain the mysterious influence of
earthquakes in equinoctial America, on the climate, and on the
order of the dry and rainy seasons. If the earth generally act on
the air only at the moment of the shocks, we can conceive why a
sensible meteorological change so rarely precedes those great
revolutions of nature.
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