207 



Continent, the low regions on the seacoasts dif- 

 fer as widely from the inland mountainous dis- 

 tricts, as the plains of Lower Egypt from the 

 high lands of Abyssinia. 



The analogies which we have just indicated, 

 between the seacoasts of Andalusia and those of 

 Peru, extend themselves also to the frequency of 

 earthquakes, and the limits which nature seems 

 to have prescribed to these phenomena. We 

 have ourselves felt very violent shocks at Cuma- 

 na ; and, at the moment while the edifices re- 

 cently overthrown were rebuilding, we were 

 informed on the spot of the most minute circum- 

 stances, that accompanied the great catastrophe 

 of the 14th of December, 1797. These obser- 

 vations will be perhaps the more interesting, as 

 earthquakes have hitherto been considered 

 rather in the fatal effects which they have had 

 on the population and welfare of society, than 

 under a physical and geological point of view. 



It is a very generally received opinion on the 

 coasts of Cumana, and in the island of Marga- 

 retta, that the gulf of Cariaco owes it's existence 

 to a rent of the continent attended by an irrup- 

 tion of the ocean. The remembrance of h is 

 great revolution was preserved among the In- 

 dians to the end of the fifteenth century : and it 

 is related, that, at the time of the third voyage 

 of Christopher Columbus, the natives mentioned 

 it as a very recent event. In 1530, the inhabi- 



