Meteorological Phenomena. 215 



should be ejected to such a height, the explosion must be tremendous ; 

 and so it was in both cases. The roaring of the Coseguina was 

 heard at Kingston, San Salvador, Baliza, Santa Martha, and Santa 

 Ee da Bogota, therefore at a distance of 200 German miles. Union, 

 a seaport on the west coast of" Conchagua, was in utter darkness 

 during the space of forty-three hours. "When lights began to glim- 

 mer again, and render objects visible, it was found that the sea-coast 

 had advanced 800 feet, by means of the mass of falling ashes. In 

 like manner, the volcano of Morne Carou belongs to a chain of mag- 

 nificent volcanic influences, the last link of which it forms. In the 

 midst of earthquakes, and of smoke and flame which lasted from 

 June till July in the year 1811, the Island of Sabrina was upheaved 

 out of the sea in the neighbourhood of St Miguel, one of the Azores, 

 and rose to the height of 300 feet above it, the depth of the sea in 

 that place being 150 feet, and the circumference of the newly-formed 

 island about an English mile. Then the Lesser Antilles were shaken 

 by earthquakes, and rent the valleys of the Mississippi, Arkansas, 

 and Ohio. But the elastic force found no outlet there ; it sought it 

 on the north of Columbia. The 26th of March dawned an extra- 

 ordinarily hot day in Caraccas ; the air was serene, and the skies 

 cloudless. It was Palm Sunday. A regiment of troops of the line 

 stood under arms in the Barracks of El Quartel del San Carlos ready 

 to take part in the procession, and the people were streaming to- 

 wards the churches, when suddenly loud subterranean thunder was 

 heard, followed by an earthquake so violent, that the Church of 

 Alta Gracia, which is above 150 German feet high, and is sup- 

 ported by buttresses fifteen German feet in thickness, became a mass 

 of ruins six German feet in height. In the evening, the moon, 

 which was almost at the full, shone with mild splendour in a cloud- 

 less heaven, and cast its rays on the ruins of the principal town 

 under which 10,000 of the inhabitants were buried. But neither 

 here did the volcanic force succeed in obtaining an outlet. At last, 

 on the 27th of April, it gained the mastery, by forcing open the 

 crater of Morne Carou, which had been closed for a whole century, 

 and, as far as Bio Apura, that is to say, at a distance as great as from 

 Vesuvius to Paris, the thundering hymn of jubilee, entoned by the 

 liberated prisoner, was heard to resound. 



The space between two meridians is an isosceles triangle, which 

 has its base line resting on the equator and its points on the pole. 

 The mass of air which ascends from the heated base cannot flow as 

 far as the points in the ever narrowing space ; it must descend before 

 reaching them. We find the upper current in the tropical regions, 

 even in summer, already sunk down at the Peak of Teneriffe ; in the 

 neighbourhood of the Azores, it has already reached the ground. 

 Europe lies in this upper trade wind. 



As, however, the region of calms, and the whole phenomena of 

 the trade winds follow the course of the sun ? so also do the places 



