27 



stances, tliese caverns may serve to counteract 

 the progress of those convulsions to which the 

 neighbouring country is subject. 



The inhabitants usually calculate three or four 

 earthquakes at Chili annually, but they are very 

 slight, and little attention is paid to them. The 

 great earthquakes happen but rarely.* The 



* Ih a period of 244 jears, from the arrival of the Spa- 

 niards to the year 1782, tive great earthquakes liave occurred 

 in Chih'. The first, which was in the year 1520, destroyed 

 some villages in tiic soutliern provinces; the second, on the 

 13th of May, in the year l647, ruined many of the houses of 

 St. Jago ; the third, on the I6tli of March, l6"57, destroyed 

 a great part of that capital ; the ft)urth took phice on the 1 8th 

 of June, IJ'M), wlun tlie sea was driven against the city of 

 Conception, an<t overthrew its walls ; and the fifth on the 26th 

 of May, 1751, ccmipletely destroyed that city, which was 

 again inundated by the sea, and levelled with the ground all 

 the fortresses and villages situated between the 34th and 40th 

 degrees of latitude. Its cour>e was from south to north, and 

 it was announced by some slight siiocks on the preceding 

 nights ; more especially by one about a quarter of an hour 

 before its comnioncement, accxjmpanied by a ball of fire that 

 precipitated iisclf from the Andes into the sea. Tlic great 

 shucks began about midnight, and conthmed four or five 

 minutes each, but the earth was in a state of almost constant 

 vibration until day-break. Just before the earhquake the 

 sky was perfectly clear in every quarter, but im iiediately after 

 its conniicnccment it became covered wilh black clouds, which 

 poured down a continual rain for the spare of eight days, 

 at the end of wiiich there was a recurrence of slight tremblingj 

 tliat continued during a mouth, wiili short inter\als between 

 iwd), of fifieea or twenty minutes. It is not supposed that on 



