ON ITS EXTEEIOR. VOLCANOES. 291 



the high basaltic cupola el Cuiche, fissures had opened^ 

 and that these ashes had been emitted from them before 

 any change had been seen to take place in the plain. 

 From a letter found in the Episcopal archives of Val- 

 ladolid, written by Father Joaquin de Ansogorri, three 

 weeks after the day of the first outburst, it would 

 clearly seem that Father Isidro Molina (sent from the 

 Jesuits' College of the neighbouring station of Patz- 

 cuaro "to administer spiritual consolation to the in- 

 habitants of the Playas de Jorullo, greatly disquieted 

 by the subterranean noises and the shocks of earth- 

 quake") was the first to recognise the increasing danger, 

 and thus became the means of rescuing the whole of 

 the scanty population. 



In the first hours of the night the black ashes were 

 already a foot high from the ground ; every one fled to 

 the heights of Aguasarco, an Indian village 2400 feet 

 above the old plain of Jorullo. From these heights 

 they saw (so says the traditional account) dreadful 

 outbursts of flame over a wide extent of country ; and 

 " in the midst of the flames " (according to the expres- 

 sion of the actual spectators of the upheaval of the 

 mountain) " there appeared a large shapeless lump 

 (bulto grande) like a black castle (castillo negro)." 

 In the then very sparsely inhabited state of the 

 country (indigo and cotton were then very little cul- 

 tivated) not a single human being lost his life in the 

 violent and long-continued earthquake which, how- 

 ever, as I found by manuscript notices ( 43 ), overthrew 

 houses at the copper mines of Inguaran, in the little 

 town of Patzcuaro, at Santiago de Ario, and for many 

 miles further, not, however, beyond S. Pedro Churumuco. 



u 2 



