BOUGUEr's voyage to PERU. 303 



fmall quantity of water might have occafioned all the difafter. The inundation was not 

 of more than a quarter of a minute's duration in many places ; it was commenced by 

 a ftunning noife ; neighbours reciprocally gave notice of the danger to each other ; but 

 many, inflead of taking to the neighbouring heights, met the danger. The waters 

 difappeared in an inftant, and but for the melancholy veftiges and marks it left of its 

 paffage, it might have been conceived as a dream. I fufpeS the fnow had melted for 

 fome time upon the fummit of the volcano, and that below being more diftant from 

 the fire, preferved its confidence, and formed a kind of bafon with the ridge of the 

 mountain ; but the melting always increafing, and the weight augmenting too confi- 

 derably, the waters muft neceflarily fall ; and with it many large maffes of fuming 

 fnow were obferved to be drawn along with them, and which, although broken, were 

 yet more than fifteen or twenty feet diameter. 



Something fimilar to this happened when a violent earthquake overthrew the little 

 town of Latacunga, and many hamlets or villages as far as Ambato, lying towards the 

 third part of our meridian. A very high mountain fituated very near to Chimborazo, 

 fell ; as even did fome others of lefs elevation which were upon the fame line, and 

 whofe fragments have been of ufe to us in our triangles. There iffued fo great a quan- 

 tity of water from them, as to caufe a great inundation in the neighbourhood of them, 

 if foil falling, diiuting, and metamorphofing itfelf into mud may be called an inunda- 

 tion ; but it was a mud fufficiently liquified to run under the form of ftreams and 

 rivers, of which many veftiges are yet vifible. Cargavirazo, the higheft of thefe 

 mountains, is now but of middling elevation. Others partially crumbled, one half 

 fell, and the other remained ; having the fide from which the falling portion feparated, 

 too fteep to be afcended. I had the curiofity to go up one of thefe mountains named 

 Pugnalic, at the foot of which we had a fignal ; 1 met with an infinity of clefts, which 

 obliged me to proceed with caution, and the foil appeared to me extremely pul- 

 verifed. Cargavirazo, when it loft its height, took a dwarf conical figure ; there muft 

 be much fait contained in it, which aids congelation. Although it is much below the 

 line of the lower level of ihe fnow on other mountains, yet is its fummit continually 

 covered with fnow ; and is the only marked exception to what is generally obferved. 

 Whole fields planted with trees are noticed, that have evidently been detached and 

 carried to fome leagues from each other. . At- Latacunga the calamity was in the ex- 

 treme, whole families were buried together under the fame roof, and abfolutely there 

 was not a houfe in which they had not to lament the death of fome one inhabiting it. 

 This dreadful fcene took place on the 20th of June 1698, one hour- after mid-night, 

 and the whole mifchief was caufed by the firft ftiock. 



It is not aftoniftiing that judicial aftrology at Peru ftiould pretend to a prognoftication 

 of the periods of earthquakes and volcanic irruptions. A tafte for this vain fcience is 

 preferved in every country, where true fcience has yet made but little progrefs. A 

 curious man, a fubftitute of the profeflbr of mathematics in the univerfity of Lima, 

 publifhed, in 1729, a work, under the title D'Horloge Jjirommique des Tremblemens 

 de Terre^ (an Aftronomical Dial of the Earthquakes,) in which he confined himfelf to 

 mark out the fatal hours during which they were to be apprehended. In 1734, he fent 

 out another book into the world, wherein he imparted to the public a Tragic Period, to 

 ferve as a rule to diftinguifti the years fubjed; to fimilar accidents; and he did not 

 fcruple to advance, that if, in 1729, his aftronomical dial was already confirmed by one 

 hundred and forty-three obfervations, he had, in 1734, colle(5l:ed feventy others, equally 

 conformable thereto. It has been long obferved, that maritime places are more ex- 

 pofed to thefe dreadful phenomena than inland ones. If we glance over the places of the 



12 old 



