512 COSMOS. 



miles further, but not beyond San Pedro Churumucu. In 

 the Hacienda de Jorullo, during the general nocturnal 

 flight, they forgot to remove a deaf and dumb negro slave. 

 A mulatto had the humanity to return and save him, 

 while the house was still standing. It is still narrated 

 that he was found kneeling, with a consecrated taper in 

 Jorullo in latitude is not without importance, I have noticed that 

 Lejarza, who otherwise always follows my astronomical determi- 

 nations of position, and who gives the longitude of Jorullo exactly 

 like myse.f as 2 25' west of the meridian of Mexico (101 29' west 

 of Greenwich), differs from me in the latitude. Is the latitude attri- 

 buted by him to the Jorullo (18 53' 30''), which comes nearest to 

 that of the volcano of Popocatepetl (18 59' 47"), founded upon re- 

 cent observations unknown to me? In my Recueil d'Observ. Astrono-. 

 miques, vol. ii, p. 521, I have said expressly, " Latitude supposee, 19 8', 

 deduced from good astronomical observations at Valladolid, which 

 gave 19 52' 8", and from the Itinerary direction." I only recognized 

 the importance of the latitude of Jorullo, when subsequently I was 

 drawing up the great map of Mexico in the capital city and inserting 

 the E. W. series of volcanoes. 



As in these considerations upon the origin of Jorullo, I have repeat- 

 edly mentioned the traditions which still prevail in the neighbourhood, 

 I will conclude this long note by referring to a very popular tradition, 

 which I have already touched upon in another work (Essai Politique 

 sur la Nouvelle Espagne, t. ii, 1827, p. 172):" According to the belief 

 of the natives, these extraordinary changes which we have just 

 described, are the work of the monks, the greatest, perhaps, that they 

 have produced in either hemisphere. At the Playas de Jorullo, in 

 the hut that we occupied, our Indian host told us that, in 1759, the 

 Capuchins belonging to the mission preached at the station or San 

 Pedro, but that, not having been favourably received, they charged 

 this beautiful and fertile plain, with the most horrible and compli- 

 cated imprecations, prophesying that first of all the house would be 

 devoured by flames which would issue from the earth, and that after- 

 wards the surrounding air would become cooled to such a degree that 

 the neighbouring mountains wou^d remain eternally covered with 

 snow and ice. The former of these Maledictions having had such fatal 

 consequences, the lower class of Indians already see in the gradual 

 cooling of the volcano, the presage of a perpetual winter." 



Next to that of the poet, Father Landivar, the first printed account of 

 the catastrophe was probably that already mentioned in the Gazeta de 

 Mexico of the 5th May, 1789 (t. iii, Num. 30, pp. 293297) ; it bears 

 the modest title, Superficial y nada facultativa Description del estado 

 en que se hallaba el Volcdn de Jorullo la manana del dia 10 de Marzo de 

 1789, and was occasioned by the expedition of Riano, Franz Fischer, 

 and Espelde. Subsequently (1791) in the naval astronomical expedi- 

 tion of Malaspina, the botanists, Mocino and Don Martin Sesse, visited 

 Jorullo, from the Pacific coast. 



