250 COSMOS. 



and 1843, when the eruptions were associated with most 

 noise, the latter was heard most distinctly not only in the 

 harbor of Guayaquil, but also'further to the south along the 

 coast of the Pacific Ocean, as far as Payta and San Buena- 

 ventura, at a distance equal to that of Berlin from Basle, 

 the Pyrenees from Fontainebleau, or London from Aber- 

 deen. Although, since the commencement of the present 

 century, the volcanoes of Mexico, New Granada, Quito, 

 Bolivia, and Chili have been visited by some geognosists, 

 the Sangay, which exceeds the Tungurahua in elevation, has 

 unfortunately remained entirely neglected, in consequence of 



of a distant battery of heavy artillery, aijd which with the same wind^ 

 the same clearness of the atmosphere, and the same temperature, 

 were so extremely unequal in their intensity, not to the Sangay, but 

 to the Guacamayo, a mountain forty miles nearer, at the foot of which 

 a road leads from Quito, over the hacienda de Antisana to the plairr 

 of Archidona and the Rio Napo. (See my special map of the prov- 

 ince Quixos, No. 23 of my Atlas Geogr. et JPhys. de VAmerique, ]814- 

 1834.) Don Jorge Juan, who heard the Sangay thundering when 

 closer to it than I have been, says decidedly that the bramidos, which he 

 calls ronquidos del Volcan {Relacion del Viage a la America Meridional, 

 pt. i., t. 2, p. 569), and perceived in Pintac, a few miles from the 

 hacienda de Chillo, belong to the Sangay or Volcan de Macas, whose 

 voice, if I may make use of the expression, is very characteristic. 

 This voice appeared to the Spanish astronomer to be peculiarly harsh, 

 for which reason he calls it a snore (nn ronquido) rather than a roar 

 (bramido). The very disagreeable noise of the volcano Pichincha, 

 which I have frequently heard at night in the city of Quito, without 

 its being followed by any earthquake, has something of a clear rattling 

 sound, as though chains were rattled and masses of glass were falling 

 upon each other. On the Sangay, Wisse describes the noise to be 

 sometimes like rolling thunder, sometimes distinct and sharp, as if 

 one were in the vicinity of platoon firing. Payta and San Buenaven- 

 tura (in the Choco), where the bramidos of the Sangay, that is to 

 say, its roaring, were heard, are distant from the summit of the vol- 

 cano, in a southwestern direction, 252 and 348 geographical miles. 

 (See Carte de la Prov. Du Choco, and Cai'te hypsometrique des Cordil- 

 leres, Nos. 23 and 3 of my Atlas Geogr. et Physique.) Thus, in this 

 mighty spectacle of nature, reckojaing in the Tungurahua and the Co- 

 topaxi, which is nearer to Quito, and the roar of which I heard in 

 February, 1803, in the Pacific Ocean (^Kleinere Schriften, bd. i., s. 

 384), the voices of four volcanoes are perceived at adjacent points. 

 The ancients also mention " the difference of the noise," emitted at 

 different times on the iEolian islands by the same fiery chasm 

 {Straho, lib. vi., p. 276). During the great eruption (23d January, 

 1835) of the volcano of Conseguina, which is situated on the coast of 

 the Pacific, at the entrance of the Bay of Fonseca, in Central Ameri- 

 ca, the subterranean propagation of the sound was so great, that it 

 was most distinctly perceived on the plateau of Bogota, at a distance 

 equal to that froiflSffitna to Hamburg (Acosta, Viajes Cieatificos de M. 

 Boussingault a los~Andes, 1849, s. 56). 



