310 COSMOS. 



which threw out these ashes (rapilli) before any change 

 appears to have occurred in the plain. From a letter of 

 Father Joaquin de Ansogorri, discovered in the Episcopal 

 archives of Valladolid, which was written three weeks after 

 the day of the first eruption, it appears evident that Father 

 Isidro Molina, sent from the neighbouring Jesuits' College 

 of Patzcuaro " to give spiritual comfort to the inhabitants 

 of the Playas de Jorullo, who were extremely disquieted by 

 the subterranean noise and earthquakes," was the first to 

 perceive the increasing danger, and thus caused the preser- 

 vation of the small population. 



In the first hours of the night the black ashes already lay 

 a foot deep ; every one fled towards the hill of Aguasarco, 

 a small Indian village, situated 2409 feet higher than the 

 old plain of Jorullo. From this height (so runs the tra- 

 dition) a large tract of land was seen in a state of fearful 

 fiery eruption, and " in the midst of the flames (as those 

 who witnessed the ascent of the mountain expressed them- 

 selves) there appeared, like a black castle (castillo negro), a 

 great, shapeless mass (bulto grande)". From the small po- 

 pulation of the district (the cultivation of indigo and cotton 

 was then but very little carried on) even the force of long- 

 continued earthquakes cost no human lives, although, as 

 I learn from manuscript records 6 , houses were over- 



6 In my JEssai Politique sur la Nouvelle-Espagne, in the two editions 

 of 1811 and 1827 (in the latter, t. ii, pp. 165 175), I have, as the nature 

 of that work required, only given a condensed abstract from my 

 journal, without being able to furnish a topographical plan of the 

 vicinity or a chart of the altitudes. From the importance which 

 has been assigned to this great phenomenon of the middle of the last 

 century, I have thought it necessary to complete this abstract here. 

 I am indebted for particular details relating to the new volcano of 

 Jorullo to an official document, written three weeks after the day of 

 the first eruption, but only discovered in the year 1830 by a very 

 scientific Mexican clergyman, Don Juan Jose* Pastor Morales; and 

 also to oral communications from my companion, the Biscayan Don 

 Ramon Espelde, who had been able to examine living eye-witnesses 

 of the first eruption. Morales discovered in the Archives of the 

 Bishop of Michuacan, a report addressed on the 19th of October, 1759, 

 by Joaquin de Ansogorri, Priest in the Indian village la Guacana, to 

 his Bishop. In his instructive work (Aufenthalt undReisen in Mexico, 

 1836) Burkart has also given a short extract from it (Bd. i. s. 230). 

 At the time of my journey, Don Ramon Espelde was living on the 



