76 | EARTHQUAKES. 
province of Quito underwent so violent a com- 
motion that 40,000 persons were destroyed ; and at 
the same period shocks were experienced in the 
Eastern Antilles, followed by an eruption of the 
voleano of Guadaloupe, in the end of September 
1798. On the 14th December the great concussion 
took place at Cumana. 
It has long been remarked that earthquakes ex- 
tend their effects to much greater distances than 
volcanoes ; and it is probable, as has just been men- 
tioned, that the causes which produce the former 
have an intimate connexion with the latter. When 
seated within the verge of a burning crater, one feels 
the motion of the ground several seconds before each 
partial eruption. The phenomena of earthquakes 
seem strongly to indicate the action of elastic fluids 
endeavouring to force their way into the atmo- 
sphere. On the shores of the South Sea the concus- 
sion is almost instantaneously communicated from 
Chili to the Gulf of Guayaquil, over a space of 2070 
~~ miles. The shocks also appear to be so much the 
stronger the more distant the country is from active 
volcanoes; and a province is more agitated, the 
-smaller the number of funnels by which the sub- 
terranean cavities communicate with the open air. 
