320 



accidental, follow for whole weeks a certain 

 type with astonishing* regularity. The same 

 phenomenon exists in summer, under the tem- 

 perate zone ; nor has it escaped the sagacity of 

 astronomers, who often see clouds form in a 

 serene sky, during three or four days together, 

 at the same part of the firmament, take the 

 same direction, and dissolve at the same height ; 

 sometimes before, sometimes after the passage 

 of a star over the meridian, consequently with- 

 in a few minutes of the same point of apparent 

 time % 



The earthquake of the 4th of November, the 

 first I had felt, made so much the more lively 

 an impression on me as it was accompanied 

 with remarkable meteorological variations. It 

 was moreover a real lifting up, and not a shock 

 by undulations. I did not then imagine, that 

 after a long abode on the table-lands of Quito 

 and the coasts of Peru, I should become almost 

 as familiar with the abrupt movements of the 

 ground, as we are in Europe with the noise of 

 thunder. We did not think of rising at night, 

 in the city of Quito, when subterraneous rum- 

 blings (bramidos). which seem always to come 

 from the volcano of Pichincha, announced, (two 



* Mr. Arago and I paid a great deal of attention to this 

 phenomenon during a long series of observations made in 

 the years 1809 and 1810, at the Observatory of Paris, to 

 verify the 'declination of the stars. 



