294 COSMOS. 



the copper mines of Inguaran, in the small town of Patzcu- 

 aro, in Santiago de Ario, and many miles farther, but not 



from the Playas. "It is thought," he adds, "that the materials in 

 the bowels of the earth have met with obstacles to their following 

 their old course; and, as they have found suitable cavities (to the 

 east," they have broken out at Jorullo — para reventar en Xurullo). — 

 Accurate topographical statements regarding the neighborhood of the 

 volcano occur also in Jnan Jose Martinez de Lejarza's geographical 

 sketch of the ancient Taraskian country : Andlisis Estadistico de laPro- 

 vincia de Michuacan en 1822 (Mexico, 1824), p. 125, 129, 130, and 131. 

 The testimony of the author, living at Valladolid, in the vicinity of 

 Jorullo, that, since my residence in Mexico, no trace of an increased 

 activity has shown itself in the mountain, was the earliest contradic- 

 tion of the report of a new eruption in the year 1819 (Lyell, Princi- 

 ples of Geology^ 1855, p. 430). As the position of Jorullo in latitude 

 is not without importance, I have noticed that Lejarza, who otherwise 

 always follows my astronomical determinations of position, and who 

 gives the longitude of Jorullo exactly like myself as 2° 25' west of the 

 meridian of Mexico (101° 29' west of Greenwich), differs from me in 

 the latitude. Is the latitude attributed by him to the Jorullo (18° 53' 

 30 "), which comes nearest to that of the volcano of Popocatepetl (18° 

 59' 47"), founded upon recent observations unknown to me? In my 

 Recueil d'Observ. Astronomiques, vol. ii., p. 521, I have said expressly, 

 " Latitude supposce, 19° 8', deduced from good astronomical observa- 

 tions at Valladolid, which gave 19° 52' 8", and from the itinerary di- 

 rection." 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 neighborhood, 

 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 Esjmgne, t. ii., 1827, p. 172): "According to the belief of 

 the natives, these extraordinary changes which we have just described 

 Ai'e the work of the monks, the greatest, perhaps, that they have pro- 

 duced in either hemisphere. At the Playas de Jorullo, in the hut that 

 we occupied, our Indian host told us that in 1759 the Capuchins be- 

 longing to the mission preached at the station of San Pedro, but that, 

 not having been favorably received, they charged this beautiful and 

 fertile plain with the most horrible and complicated imprecations, 

 prophesying that first of all the house would be devoured by flames 

 which would issue from the earth, and that afterward the surrounding 

 air would become cooled to such a degree that the neighboring mount- 

 ains would 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 ])robably that already mentioned in the Gazeta 

 de Mexico of the 5th of May, 1789 (t. iii.. Num. 30, p. 293-297) ; it 

 bears the modest title, Superficial y nada facultativa Descripcion deles- 

 tado en que se hallaba el Volcdn de Jorullo, la mahana del dia 10 de Marzo 

 de 1789, and was occasioned by the expedition of Eiaiio, Franz Fischer, 



