26 REPORT—1858. 
or EF. 35° S. to W. 35° N., which is about parallel also to Perrey’s mean 
direction. It must not be forgotten, however, that, in 1812 and in 1843, 
shocks were observed at right angles to this, and in some cases, as in 1770, 
in all azimuths ; and also that the prevalent opinion of the inhabitants of the 
West Indian Islands is, that they have a general north and south horizontal 
direction, thus coming within the scope of the general direction of similar 
phenomena on the northern and southern continents of America. 
M. Poey, of the Observatory, Havanna, has published, in the ‘ Nouvelles 
Annales des Voyages’ for 1855, a memoir and supplement upon the earth- 
quakes of Cuba, separately, with copies of which he has obligingly fur- 
nished me. It would be out of place in this Report to discuss M. Poey’s 
views as to the connexion between cyclones, or other storms, and earth- 
quakes, or as to the physical causes of the impulse producing shocks. As 
regards the first, it may, however, be remarked in passing, that violent and 
sudden local change of barometer-pressure must (as I have indicated ina 
former report) be viewed as a possible inducer of such reactions beneath the 
surface as may possibly result in earthquakes; and that as respects the part 
which water, under heat and pressure, may play in its spheroidal state, I 
have also indicated fully as much as the present state of our knowledge will 
sustain. As respects the statistic results of M. Poey’s labours, they are 
embraced in the following table, which combines the facts of both memoir 
and supplement :— 
TasLe XVIII.—Earthquakes of Cuba. 
Earthquakes with date of Day or of Month. a 
at 
Century. | | | 3 S|) 18 s Total. 
Ps | ZI\EBlEl\E\ eS 
Ble|eid}|als Sheps) 2 sdee 
a a 0 a = = A Ul | 
slelealaljeisns {/sSil[alalo};asa 
ME Vececte Hi. 4 4 
EVIE. 4 a | eh Tiloeell ed 
XVIII “ae oe Mess fain, Ie cantatas a aM! 2 
OKC eres 4) 3] 2] 3} 8] 4] 5) 2] 6G} 5} 6} 4] 38] 50 
Total ..)) 2 Wh PE Bye a es ees 6 te oe Ge 
| | 
Winter Spring Summer Autumn 
13 10 13 15 
Cuba, therefore, appears to show 28 earthquakes in the winter and autumn, 
and 23 only in the summer and spring. 
The surface of this single island is, however, perhaps too small to attach 
much importance to its isolated discussion*. 
The last of Perrey’s monographie memoirs is that on Chili and La Plata, 
* While this Report has been passing through the press, I have received from M. Poey a 
copy of his later and more elaborate ‘‘ Chronological Catalogue of Earthquakes in the West 
Indies, from 1530 to 1857, extracted from ‘l’Annuaire de la Société Météorologique de France,’ 
tom. v. p. 75, Séance du 25 Mai, 1857,” and regret that the limits of a foot-note preclude 
the possibility of analysis of his valuable memoir. 
Of a total of 690 earthquakes, he finds that 142 occurred in winter, 156 in spring, 187 
in summer, and 154 in autumn,—thus so far corroborating Perrey’s result deduced from 
a smaller base. 
A very complete Seismic Bibliography for the Antilles concludes M. Poey’s memoir, 
