31 



fluids, which shook the ground of the kingdom 

 of Quito, and destroyed in a few minutes thirty 

 or forty thousand inhabitants ? 



In order to explain these great effects of 

 volcanic reactions, and to prove, that the group 

 or system of the volcanoes of the West India 

 Islands may sometimes shake the continent, it 

 was necessary to cite the Cordillera of the 

 Andes. Geological reasoning can be supported 

 only on the analogy of facts that are recent, 

 and consequently well authenticated: and in 

 what other region of the Globe could we find 

 greater and at the same time more varied vol- 

 canic phenomena, than in that double chain of 

 mountains heaved up by fire ? in that land, 

 where Nature has covered every summit and 

 every valley with her marvels ? If we consider 

 a burning crater only as an isolated phenome- 

 non, if we satisfy ourselves with examining the 

 mass of stony substances which it has thrown 

 up, the volcanic action at the surface of the 

 Globe will appear neither very powerful, nor 

 very extensive. But the image of this action 

 swells in the mind, when we study the relations 

 that link together volcanoes of the same group ; 

 for instance those of Naples and Sicily, of the 

 Canary islands * 3 of the Azores, of the Caribbee 



* I have already related, vol. i, p. 249, how the whole 

 group of the Canary islands are placed, as we may say, on 

 one and the same submarine volcano; the fire of which, 



