XVI RAIN AND EARTHQUAKES 375 



The valley of Copiapo, forming a mere ribbon of green in 

 a desert, runs in a very southerly direction ; so that it is of 

 considerable length to its source in the Cordillera. The valleys 

 of Guasco and Copiapo may both be considered as long narrow- 

 islands, separated from the rest of Chile by deserts of rock 

 instead of by salt water. Northward of these, there is one 

 other very miserable valley, called Paposo, which contains 

 about two hundred souls ; and then there extends the real 

 desert of Atacama — a barrier far worse than the most turbulent 

 ocean. After staying a few days at Potrero Seco, I proceeded 

 up the valley to the house of Don Benito Cruz, to whom I had 

 a letter of introduction. I found him most hospitable ; indeed 

 it is impossible to bear too strong testimony to the kindness 

 with which travellers are received in almost every part of South 

 America. The next day I hired some mules to take me by 

 the ravine of Jolquera into the central Cordillera. On the 

 second night the weather seemed to foretell a storm of snow or 

 rain, and whilst lying in our beds we felt a trifling shock of an 

 earthquake. 



The connexion between earthquakes and the weather has 

 been often disputed : it appears to me to be a point of great 

 interest, which is little understood. Humboldt has remarked 

 in one part of the Personal Narrative} that it would be difficult 

 for any person who had long resided in New Andalusia, or in 

 Lower Peru, to deny that there exists some connexion between 

 these phenomena ; in another part, however, he seems to think 

 the connexion fanciful. At Guayaquil, it is said that a heavy 

 shower in the dry season is invariably followed by an earth- 

 quake. In Northern Chile, from the extreme infrequency of 

 rain, or even of weather foreboding rain, the probability of 

 accidental coincidences becomes very small; yet the inhabitants 

 are here most firmly convinced of some connexion between 

 the state of the atmosphere and of the trembling of the ground : 

 I was much struck by this, when mentioning to some people at 

 Copiapo that there had been a sharp shock at Coquimbo : they 



^ Vol. iv. p. II, and vol. ii. p. 217. For the remarks on Guayaquil see 

 Sillknan's Journ. vol. xxiv. p. 384. For those on Tacna by Mr. Hamilton, see 

 Trans, of British Association^ 1 840. For those on Coseguina see Mr. Caldcleugh 

 in Phil. Trans. 1 835. In the former edition, I collected several references on the 

 coincidences between sudden falls in the barometer and earthquakes ; and between 

 earthquakes and meteors. 



