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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We Observed This Phenomenon At
Vesuvius In 1805, While The Mountain Threw Out Incandescent
Scoriae; We Were Witnesses Of It In 1802, On The Brink Of The
Immense Crater Of Pichincha, From Which, Nevertheless, At That
Time, Clouds Of Sulphureous Acid Vapours Only Issued.
Everything in earthquakes seems to indicate the action of elastic
fluids seeking an outlet to diffuse themselves in the
Atmosphere.
Often, on the coasts of the Pacific, the action is almost
instantaneously communicated from Chile to the gulf of Guayaquil, a
distance of six hundred leagues; and, what is very remarkable, the
shocks appear to be the stronger in proportion as the country is
distant from burning volcanoes. The granitic mountains of Calabria,
covered with very recent breccias, the calcareous chain of the
Apennines, the country of Pignerol, the coasts of Portugal and
Greece, those of Peru and Terra Firma, afford striking proofs of
this fact. The globe, it may be said, is agitated with the greater
force, in proportion as the surface has a smaller number of funnels
communicating with the caverns of the interior. 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.
THE first weeks of our abode at Cumana were employed in testing our
instruments, in herborizing in the neighbouring plains, and in
examining the traces of the earthquake of the 14th of December,
1797. Overpowered at once by a great number of objects, we were
somewhat embarrassed how to lay down a regular plan of study and
observation. Whilst every surrounding object was fitted to inspire
in us the most lively interest, our physical and astronomical
instruments in their turns excited strongly the curiosity of the
inhabitants. We had numerous visitors; and in our desire to satisfy
persons who appeared so happy to see the spots of the moon through
Dollond's telescope, the absorption of two gases in a eudiometrical
tube, or the effects of galvanism on the motions of a frog, we were
obliged to answer questions often obscure, and to repeat for whole
hours the same experiments. These scenes were renewed for the space
of five years, whenever we took up our abode in a place where it
was understood that we were in possession of microscopes,
telescopes, and electrical apparatus.
I could not begin a regular course of astronomical observations
before the 28th of July, though it was highly important for me to
know the longitude given by Berthoud's time-keeper; but it
happened, that in a country where the sky is constantly clear and
serene, no stars appeared for several nights. The whole series of
the observations I made in 1799 and 1800 give for their results,
that the latitude of the great square at Cumana is 10 degrees 27
minutes 52 seconds, and its longitude 66 degrees 30 minutes 2
seconds. This longitude is founded on the difference of time, on
lunar distances, on the eclipse of the sun (on the 28th of October,
1799), and on ten immersions of Jupiter's satellites, compared with
observations made in Europe. The oldest chart we have of the
continent, that of Don Diego Ribeiro, geographer to the emperor
Charles the Fifth, places Cumana in latitude 9 degrees 30 minutes;
which differs fifty-eight minutes from the real latitude, and half
a degree from that marked by Jefferies in his American Pilot,
published in 1794. During three centuries the whole of the coast
of Terra Firma has been laid down too far to the south: this has
been owing to the current near the island of Trinidad, which sets
toward the north, and mariners are led by their dead-reckoning to
think themselves farther south than they really are.
On the 17th of August a halo round the moon fixed the attention of
the inhabitants of Cumana, who considered it as the presage of some
violent earthquake; for, according to popular notions, all
extraordinary phenomena are immediately connected with each other.
Coloured circles around the moon are much more rare in northern
countries than in Provence, Italy, and Spain. They are seen
particularly (and this fact is singular enough) when the sky is
clear, and the weather seems to be most fair and settled. Under the
torrid zone beautiful prismatic colours appear almost every night,
and even at the time of the greatest droughts; often in the space
of a few minutes they disappear several times, because, doubtless,
the superior currents change the state of the floating vapours, by
which the light is refracted. I sometimes even observed, between
the fifteenth degree of latitude and the equator, small halos
around the planet Venus; the purple, orange, and violet, were
distinctly perceived:
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