648 



accompanied the great earthquake of Caraccas*, 

 the 26th March, 1812, I mentioned the deto- 

 nations which were heard at different! periods, 

 in the mountains, altogether granitic, of the 

 Oroonoko. The elastic forces which agitate 

 the soil, the still-burning volcanos, the hot 

 sulphurous springs, sometimes containing fluoric 

 acid, the presence of asphaltum and naphtha in 

 primitive soils, all lead us towards the interior 

 of our planet, of which the high temperature is 



Geschichte der nat. Veranderungen der Erdolerflache, 1824, 

 Vol. ii, p. 516. 



* I stated in another place the influence which this great 

 catastrophe exerted on the counter-revolution which the 

 royalist party succeeded in producing at this epocha in 

 Venezuela. Nothing is more curious than the negociation 

 which was opened on the 5th of April, by the republican 

 government, placed at Valencia in the v allies ofAragua, 

 with Archbishop Prat (Don Narciso Coll y Prat), to engage 

 him to publish a pastoral letter fitted to tranquillize the 

 people respecting the wrath of the divinity. The Arch- 

 bishop was permitted to say that this wrath was merited on 

 account of the disorder of morals ; but he was enjoined to 

 declare positively, that politics and systematic opinions on 

 the new social order had nothing in common with it y {de- 

 clarar que lajusticia divina a los mas ha querido castigar a los 

 vicios morales, sin que el terremoto tenga conexion alguna con 

 los sistemas y reformas politicas de Venezuela). Archbishop 

 Prat lost his liberty after this singular correspondence. 

 See the official documents, published in Pedro de Urquinaona, 

 Relacion documentada del origen y progresos del trastorno de 

 las provincial de Venezuela, 1820, Vol. i, p. 72—83). 



