EAKTH QUAKES AND VOLCANOES. 



the fissures of the strata, between which the matter forming the 

 chain was originally forced up. Many exceptions, however, to 

 this are presented by earthquakes which have been propagated in 

 directions transverse to those of the mountain chains. Thus, in South 

 America they have crossed the littoral chain of Venezuela and the 

 Sierra Parime. In Asia they have been propagated in January, 

 1832, from Lahore and the foot of the Himalaya, across the chain 

 of the Hindoo Coosh as far as Badakschan on the Upper Oxus, and 

 even to Bokhara. 



42. We shall conclude this brief notice of these terrible terres- 

 trial perturbations by the general reflections upon them made by 

 Humboldt, who himself witnessed so many, and who has more than 

 any other observer of nature studied and investigated them. 



" In conclusion," says he, " I would advert to the cause of the 

 deep and peculiar impression produced on the mind by the first 

 earthquake we experience, even if it is unaccompanied by subter- 

 ranean noise. I do not think that this impression is produced by 

 the recollection at the moment of the dreadful images of destruction 

 which historic relations of past catastrophes have presented to our 

 imaginations : it is rather occasioned by the circumstance that 

 our innate confidence in the immobility of the ground beneath us 

 is at once shaken. From our earliest childhood we are accustomed 

 to contrast the mobility of water with the immobility of the earth : 

 all the evidences of our senses have confirmed this belief; and 

 when suddenly the ground itself shakes beneath us, a natural 

 force of which we have had no previous experience presents itself 

 as a strange and mysterious agency. A single instant annihilates 

 the illusion of our whole previous life; we feel the imagined 

 repose of nature vanish, and that we are ourselves transported into 

 the realm of unknown destructive forces. Every sound affects us 

 our attention is strained to catch even the faintest movement of 

 the air we no longer trust the ground beneath our feet. Even in 

 animals similar inquietude and distress are produced ; dogs and 

 swine are particularly affected, and the crocodiles of the Orinoco, 

 which at all other times are as dumb as our little lizards, leave 

 the agitated bed of the river, and run with loud cries into the 

 forest. 



" To man the earthquake conveys a sense of danger of which he 

 knows not the extent or the limit. The eruption of the volcano, 

 the flowing stream of lava threatening his habitation can be fled 

 from; but in the earthquake, turn where he will, danger and 

 destruction are around him and beneath his feet. Though such 

 emotions are deeply seated, they are not of long duration. The 

 inhabitants of countries where long series of weak shocks succeed 

 each other, lose almost every trace of fear. On the coasts of Peru, 

 164 



