66 



foot of the Paramo the earth was rent open, and streams of water 

 and foetid mud with fish poured out, overflowing and wasting 

 everything. During several of the eruptions which have taken 

 place since the year 1822, on the western coast of Chili, some 

 were seen which w r ere followed by great whirlpools, as if the sea 

 was pouring into cavities of the earth. The volcanoes of Ni- 

 caragua, in Guatimala, during their activity, are commonly at- 

 tended by whirlpools. Had there been such an igneous nucleus 

 as the one assumed by the plutonists, covered only by a thin 

 crust, what w 7 ould be the consequence when the sea happens to 

 pour into it? There would certainly follow some awful cata- 

 strophe ; but we are happy to state no such convulsions have 

 occurred. Aqueous products and muddy matter are more com- 

 mon than lava or melted rocks ; and we find that they generally 

 contain putrid fish of the adjoining sea or lakes, as the case may 

 be. Hence, if we take the products, their effects, and linear ac- 

 tions into consideration, we have strong evidences in favour of 

 considering the whole phenomena due to electro-magnetic action. 



CHAPTER XI. 



THE NORTHWARD AND UNDULATING MOVEMENT OF THE 

 EARTH'S SURFACE EN MASSE, BY THE CONSTANT CIRCU- 

 LATING ACTION OF THE MAGNETIC CURRENTS. 



From the apparent quiet and regular succession of natural events 

 to which we are accustomed, and the repugnance we feel to the 

 idea that it is possible for the common course of nature to change 

 the general appearance of the surface without causing interrup- 

 tions, we might, without due investigation, almost persuade our- 

 selves that the physical features and conditions of the globe pos- 

 sess an unchangeable character. Indeed the general phenomena 

 of nature which are daily before our eyes, are often those which 

 are considered the least attentively. In looking at an extensive 

 forest for a hundred years, it would appear to a superficial ob- 

 server that he was viewing the same identical substances all the 

 time, yet there is no truth more certain than that the whole, or 



