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which I have witnessed to the north and south 

 of the equator ; on the continent, and in the 

 basin of the seas ; on the coasts, and at 2500 

 toises height ; it appears to me, that the oscil- 

 lations are generally very independent of the 

 previous state of the atmosphere. This opinion 

 is embraced by a number of enlightened per- 

 sons, who inhabit the Spanish colonies ; and 

 whose experience extends, if not over a greater 

 space of the Globe, at least to a greater number 

 of years, than mine. On the contrary, in parts 

 of Europe where earthquakes are rare compared 

 to America, natural philosophers are inclined to 

 admit an intimate connection between the un- 

 dulations of the ground, and certain meteors, 

 which accidentally take place at the same 

 epocha. In Italy, for instance, the sirocco and 

 earthquakes are suspected to have some con- 

 nection ; and at London, the frequency of fall- 

 ing stars, and those southern lights # , which 



* Philos. Transact., vol. xlvi, p. 642, 663, and 743. The 

 appearance of these meteors led two distinguished men of 

 science, nearly at the same time, to adopt theories diame- 

 trically opposite to each other. Hales, struck with his expe- 

 riments on the decomposition of nitrous gas when it comes 

 into contact with atmospheric air, invented a chemical theory, 

 according to which, the earthquake was the effect " of a 

 prompt condensation of sulphurous and nitrous exhalations.'* 

 Ib. p. 678. Stukeley, familiar with Franklin's ideas of the 

 distribution of electricity in the strata of the atmosphere, con- 



