CONNEXION OF VOLC.YNIC ACTION. 403 



trachytes, at a distance of eighteen or twenty-five leagues 

 from the present coast of the Pacific Ocean.* Permanent 

 communications, or at least communications frequently 

 renewed, between the atmosphere and the interior of the 

 globe, have been preserved only along that immense crevice 

 on which the Cordilleras have been upheaved; but sub- 

 terranean volcanic forces are not less active in eastern 

 America, shaking the soil of the littoral Cordillera of 

 Venezuela, and of the Parime group. In describing the 

 phenomena which accompanied the great earthquake of 

 Caracas,t on the 26th March, 1812, 1 mentioned the detona- 

 tions heard at different periods, in the mountains (altogether 

 granitic) of the Orinoco. The elastic forces which agitate 

 the ground, the still-burning volcanos, the hot sulphurous 

 springs, sometimes containing fluoric acid, the presence of 

 asphaltum and naphtha in primitive strata, all point to the 

 interior of our planet, the high temperature of which is per- 

 ceived even in mines of little depth, and which, from the 

 times of Heraclitus of Ephesus, and Anaxagoras of Clazo- 

 mena?, to the Plutonic theory of modern days, has been 

 considered as the seat of all great disturbances of the globe. 

 The sketch I have just traced contains all the formations 

 known in that part of Europe which has served as the 

 type of positive geology. It is the fruit of sixteen 

 months' labour, often interrupted by other occupations. 

 Formations of quartzose porphyry, pyroxenic porphyiy 

 and trachyte, of grauwacke, muschelkalk, and quadersand- 



* I believe the first hypotheses respecting the relation between the 

 burning of volcanoes, and the proximity of the sea, are contained in 

 jEtna Dialogus, a very eloquent though little-known work by Cardinal 

 Bembo. 



f I stated in another place the influence of that great catastrophe on 

 the counter-revolution which the royalist party succeeded in bringing about 

 at that time in Venezuela. It is impossible to conceive anything more 

 curious than the negociation opened on the 5th of April, by the repub- 

 lican government, established at Valencia in the vallies of Aragua, with 

 Archbishop Prat (Don Narciso Coll y Prat), to engage him to publish a 

 pastoral letter calculated to tranquilize the people respecting the wrath of 

 the deity. The Archbishop was permitted to say that this wrath was 

 merited on account of the disorder of morals ; but he was enjoined to 

 declare positively, that politics and systematic opinions on the new social 

 order had nothing in common with it. Archbishop Prat lost hia liberty 

 after this singular correspondence. 



SD 2 



