INTERIOR LAND CHANGES. 



431 



life and property. The terremotos, on the contrary, indicate violent horizontal oscillations 

 similar to the wave-movements of the sea, or perpendicular upliftings, as if a power was 

 operating upon the roof of a cavern from the interior, struggling to force it open, and 

 dash it away in fragments with everything upon it. By these last forms of the earth 

 quake, buildings are levelled, cities become heaps of ruins, fissures in the ground are 

 opened, rocks are split, lakes are formed, streams receive a new direction, springs are 

 stopped to gush out in fresh sites, and the general level of considerable regions is sometimes 

 depressed or elevated. Such are the features which enter into these natural convulsions, 

 either in combination, or in a more partial manner. 



The influence of an earthquake of more than ordinary severity extends to an immense 

 distance from the central seat of action. That which occurred in Chili, in the year 1835, 

 was felt at all places between the parallels of 27 and 40 through thirteen degrees of 

 latitude, approximating to a thousand miles, and through ten degrees of longitude. The 

 most recent formidable earthquake in Europe, that of which Lisbon was the focus in 1755, 

 was experienced at very remote points of the continent. It turned some of the rivers in 

 Switzerland suddenly muddy without any rain, plainly showing a disturbance of their 

 bed, and at Neufchatel the lake swelled to the height of nearly two feet above its usual 

 level. At Portsmouth, a ship in dock and well secured, the G-osport, was pitched 

 backwards and forwards several times by the sudden and violent motion of the water. In 

 the moat around Shirburn Castle in Oxfordshire, there was a regular flux and reflux of the 

 water produced. Two miners at work in one of the lead mines at Eyam in Derbyshire, 

 at a depth of more than six hundred feet, noticed the vibration of the earth, which caused 

 some loose pieces of material to drop from the roof and sides of the mine. The lakes of 

 Scotland and Norway, the canals at the Hague, and the springs of Toplitz in Bohemia, 

 gave sensible indications of participating in the catastrophe, which suddenly, after the 

 sun had risen in a serene sky over Portugal, half annihilated the capital, and left signal 

 instances of physical change in that part of the peninsula as monuments of its terrific 

 energy. Extensive, however, as the area through which a severe shock exerts its influence, 

 its more destructive ravages arc confined within a comparatively narrow range, which 

 may be called the centre of disturbance, though sometimes there seem to be several foci. 



Humboldt, in the narrative of his journey to the equinoctial regions of the New 

 Continent, has recorded all that could be learnt respecting the earthquake of the 26th of 

 March 1812, which destroyed the city of Caraccas, with twenty thousand inhabitants of 

 the province of Venezuela. An abridgment of this account will not only illustrate 

 the human disasters common on such occasions, but the vast area shaken by the 

 subterranean commotions, indicating a common agency exerted at a great depth in the 

 interior of the globe, and bearing with fatal energy upon particular points. Drought was 

 prevalent through the province of Venezuela at the time, and not a drop of rain had fallen 

 for five months around the capital. The day of its destruction broke with a calm air and 

 a cloudless sky, and became excessively hot. It was Holy Thursday, and the population 

 gathered to the churches as usual on the festival. Not any token of danger appeared, 

 till seven minutes after four in the afternoon, when a commotion was felt sufficiently 

 strong to make the bells of the churches ring. The ground continued in a state of 

 undulation, heaving like a fluid under ebullition, till a noise was heard louder and more 

 prolonged than the thunder of the fiercest tropical storm, when the undulations became 

 more violent, and proceeding from opposite directions, and crossing each other, Caraccas 

 was overthrown. Subsidences occurred at the churches of the Trinity and Alta Gracia, 

 and the barracks called El Quartet de San Carlos almost entirely disappeared by the 

 sinking of the ground. The night of Holy Thursday presented a distressing scene of 

 desolation and sorrow, which contrasted sadly with the beautiful aspect which nature 



