Volcanoes. 171 



stood shook dreadfully. After some time the violent parox- 

 ysm ceased. I stood up, and turning my eyes to Euphemia, 

 saw only a frightful black cloud. We waited till it passed 

 away, when nothing but a dismal and putrid lake was to be 

 seen where the city once stood." 



If such are the effects of earthquakes, it is not surprising 

 that the inhabitants of those countries in which they have 

 been felt, should be seized with an extreme terror at the 

 least agitation of the earth. Captain Basil Hall states, in 

 his interesting Voyage to Chili and Peru^ that when paying a 

 visit at Valparaiso, the whole party was suddenly thrown 

 into a state of violent alarm, and rushed into the street, 

 crying, Miser icordia ! misericordia ! The whole population 

 seemed to have been aroused by the same feeling ; the streets 

 were filled with people in a state of wild confusion and 

 alarm. The cause of this instantaneous terror was, our 

 traveller afterwards found, a violent shock of earthquake, 

 though he was perfectly unconscious of the least motion. 

 But Humboldt describes the feeling experienced on the 

 coast of Peru in a far different manner. " From our infancy," 

 he says, " the idea of certain contrasts fixes itself in our 

 mind ; water appears to us an element that moves, earth 

 a motionless and inert mass. These ideas are the effects of 

 daily experience ; they are connected with every thing that 

 is transmitted to us by the senses. When a shock is felt, 

 when the earth is shaken on its old foundations, which we 

 had deemed so stable, one instant is sufficient to destroy 

 long illusions. It is like awakening from a dream ; but a 

 painful awakening. We feel that we have been deceived by 

 the apparent calm of nature; we become attentive to the 

 least noise ; we mistrust, for the first time, a soil on which we 

 had so long placed our feet with confidence. If the shocks 

 be repeated, if they become frequent during successive days,, 

 the uncertainty quickly disappears. In 1 784, the inhabitants- 

 of Mexico were accustomed to hear the thunders roll beneath 

 their feet, as we are to witness the vivid flash in the region 

 of the clouds. Confidence easily springs up in the human 

 mind ; and we end by accustoming ourselves, on the coast of 

 Peru, to the undulations of the ground, like the sailor to the 

 tossing of the ship caused by the motion of the waves." (Pers. 

 Nar., vol. iii. p. 321.) 



The shocks of an earthquake are invariably most violent 

 in volcanic countries, but not in those parts which are nearest 

 to the seat of volcanic action. The effects, however, are 

 sometimes very extensive. During the earthquake at Lisbon 

 in 1755, the waters in every part of Europe were agitated. 



