TRUE VOLCANOES. 263 



Sangay, somewhat further towards the north-east, near 

 Pinibac, at the foot of the Antisana. 59 In the years 1842 

 and 1843, when the eruptions were associated with most 

 noise, the latter was heard most distinctly not only in the 

 harbour of Guayaquil, but also further to the south along 

 the coast of the Pacific Ocean, as far as Payta and San 



59 In the country house of the Marquis of Selvalegre, the father of my 

 unfortunate companion and friend, Don Carlos Montufar, one was often 

 inclined to ascribe the bramidos, which resembled the discharge of a 

 distant battery of heavy artillery, and which with the same wind, the 

 same clearness of the atmosphere and the same temperature, were so 

 extremely unequal in their intensity, not to the Sangay, but to the Guaca- 

 mayo, a mountain forty miles nearer, at the foot of which a road leads 

 from Quito, over the Hacienda de Antisana to the plains of Archidona 

 and the Rio Napo. (See my special map of the province Quixos, 

 No. 23 of my Atlas geogr. et phys. de FAmerique, 1814 1834). Don 

 Jorge Juan, who heard the Sangay thundering when closer to it than I 

 have been, says decidedly that the bramidos, which he calls ronquidos 

 del Volcan (Relation del Viage d la America Meridional, pt. i, t. 2, 

 p. 569), and perceived in Pintac, a few miles from the Hacienda de 

 Chillo, belong to the Sangay or Volcan de Macas, whose voice, if I may 

 make use of the expression, is very characteristic. This voice appeared 

 to the Spanish astronomer to be peculiarly harsh, for which reason he 

 calls it a snore (un ronquido) rather than a roar (bramido). The very 

 disagreeable noise of the volcano Pichincha, which I have frequently 

 heard at night in the city of Quito, without its being followed by any 

 earthquake, has something of a clear rattling sound as though chains were 

 rattled, and masses of glass were falling upon each other. On the Sangay, 

 Wisse describes the noise to be, sometimes tike rolling thunder, some- 

 times distinct and sharp, as if one were in the vicinity of platoon firing. 

 Payta and San Buenaventura (in the Choco) where the bramidos of the 

 Sangay, that is to say, its roaring, were heard, are distant from the 

 summit of the volcano in a south-western direction, 252 and 348 geog. 

 miles. (See Carte de la Prov. Du Choco, and Carte hypsometrique des Cor- 

 dilleres, Nos. 23 and 3 of my A tlas Geogr. et Physique). Thus, in this 

 mighty spectacle of nature, reckoning in the Tungurahua and the Coto- 

 paxi, which is nearer to Quito, and the roar of which I heard in 

 February, 1803, in the Pacific Ocean (Kleinere Schriften, Bd. i, s. 384), 

 the voices of four volcanoes are perceived at adjacent points. The 

 ancients also mention " the difference of the noise," emitted at different 

 times on the ^Eolian Islands by the same fiery chasm (Strabo, lib. vi. 

 p. 276). During the great eruption (23rd January, 1835) of the 

 volcano of Conseguina, which is situated on the coast of the Pacific, at, 

 the entrance of the Bay of Fonseca, in Central America, the subterranean 

 propagation of the sound was so great, that it was most distinctly per- 

 ceived on the plateau of Bogota", at a distance equal to that from Etna 

 to Hamburgh (Acosta. Viajes Cicntificos de M. Boussingault d los Andes, 

 1849, a. 56). 



