18 



Caraccas, could not be confined to a small por- 

 tion of the continent. Their fatal effects ex- 

 tended as far as the provinces of Venezuela, 

 Varinas, and Maracaybo, along the coast ; and 

 still more to the inland mountains. La Guayra, 

 Mayquetia, Antimano, Baruta, La Vega, San 

 Felipe, and Merida, were almost entirely de- 

 stroyed. The number of the dead exceeded four 

 or five thousand at La Guayra, and at the town 

 of San Felipe, near the copper mines of Aroa. 

 It appears, that it was on a line running East- 

 North-East, and West-South-West, from La 

 Guayra and Caraccas to the lofty mountains of 

 Niquitao and Merida, that the violence of the 

 earthquake was principally directed. It was 

 felt in the kingdom of New Grenada from the 

 branches of the high Sierra de Santa Martha * 

 as far as Santa Fe de Bogota and Honda, on the 

 banks of the Magdalena, one hundred an d eighty 

 leagues from Caraccas. It was every where 

 more violent in the Cordilleras of gneiss and 

 mica-slate, or immediately at their foot, than 

 in the plains : and this difference was par- 

 ticularly striking in the savannahs of Varinas 

 and Casanara. (This is easily explained accord- 

 ing to the system of those geologists, who admit, 

 that all the chains of mountains, volcanic and 



* As far as Villa de Los Remedios, and even to Car* 

 thagena. 



