MITCHILL ON THE EARTHQUAKES OF 1811, 1812, AKD 1813. 307 



Permit me also to observe, that cotemporaneous earthquakes have 

 agitated other regions of the globe. Terrible commotions were expe- 

 rienced among the Azores in 1808 and 1811; and in Venezuela and 

 St. Vincents in 1812. I have collected the facts into distinct histories;, 

 which I intend at convenient times to offer to this society. 



The favourers of the several hypotheses invented to explain the 

 awful phenomena of earthquakes, may all find arguments to support 

 them, in the preceding recitals. The mechanical reasoner will find the 

 great strata of the earth falling in some places, rising in others, and 

 agitated everywhere. The chemical expositor will discover evidence 

 enough of subterranean fire in the coal, hot water, vapour, and air 

 bubbles which were ejected and extricated. The electrical philosopher 

 will deduce from the lights, the noises, and the velocity of their mo- 

 tions, conclusions favourable to the origin of earthquakes from electron, 

 that subtile and universal agent. Even the believer of the conversion 

 of metallic potassium, by rapid inflammation, into common potash in 

 the deep recesses of the earth, will find in the salt-petrous sandstone 

 of the western states, a better argument than any I am acquainted with, 

 to countenance the alkaline system of earthquakes. And yet, these 

 various expositions, plausible, in some respects, as each of them is, are 

 deficient in that general character and universal application which ought 

 to pervade scientific researches. 



