:53S-] RAIN AND EARTHQUAKES. 255 



wards find a little pasture on the mountains. But without snow on the 

 Andes, desolation extends throughout the valley. It is on record that 

 three times nearly all the inhabitants have been obliged to emigrate to 

 the south. This year there was plenty of water, and every man 

 irrigated his ground as much as he chose ; but it has frequently been 

 necessary to post soldiers at the sluices, to see that each estate took 

 only its proper allowance during so many hours in the week. The 

 valley is said to contain 12,000 souls, but its produce is sufficient only 

 for three months in the year ; the rest of the supply being drawn from 

 Valparaiso and the south. Before the discovery of the famous silver 

 mines of Chanuncillo, Copiap6 was in a rapid state of decay ; but now 

 it is in a very thriving condition ; and the town, which was completely 

 overthrown by an earthquake, has been rebuilt. 



The valley of Copiap6, forming a mere ribbon ot green in a desert, 

 runs in a very southerly direction ; so that it is of considerable length 

 to its source in the Cordillera. The valleys of Guasco and Copiap6 

 may both be considered as long narrow islands, separated from the 

 rest of Chile by deserts of rock instead of by salt water. Northward 

 of these, there is one other very miserable valley, called Paposo, which 

 contains about two hundred souls ; and then there extends the real 

 desert of Atacama a barrier far worse than the most turbulent ocean. 

 After staying a few days at Potrero Seco, I proceeded up the valley to 

 the house of Don Benito Cruz, to whom I had a letter of introduction, 

 i found him most hospitable ; indeed it is impossible to bear too strong 

 testimony to the kindness with which travellers are received in almost 

 every part of South America. The next day I hired some mules to 

 take me by the ravine of Jolquera into the central Cordillera. On the 

 second night the weather seemed to foretell a storm of snow or rain, 

 and whilst lying in our beds we felt a trifling shock of an earthquake. 



The connection between earthquakes and the weather has been often 

 disputed ; it appears to me to be a point of great interest, which is little 

 understood. Humboldt has remarked in one part of the " Personal 

 Narrative,"* that it would be difficult for any person who had long 

 resided in New Andalusia, or in Lower Peru, to deny that there exists 

 some connection between these phenomena ; in another part, however, 

 he seems to think the connection fanciful. At Guayaquil, it is said 

 that a heavy shower in the dry season is invariably followed by an 

 earthquake. In Northern Chile, from the extreme infrequency of rain, 

 or even of weather foreboding rain, the probability of accidental coin- 

 cidences becomes very small ; yet the inhabitants are here most firmly 

 convinced of some connection between the state of the atmosphere and 

 of the trembling of the ground: I was much struck by this, when 

 mentioning to some people at Copiap6 that there had been a sharp shock 



* Vol. iv., p. II ; and vol. ii., p. 217. For the remarks on Guayaquil, see 

 Silliman's " Journal," vol. xxiv., p. 384. For those on Tacna by Mr. Hamilton, 

 see Transactions of British Association, 1840. For those on Coseguina, see 

 Mr. Caldcleugh m- Philosophical Transactions, 1835. In the former edition, 

 I collected several references on the coincidences between sudden falls in 

 the barometer and earthquakes ; and between earthquakes and meteors. 



