SHOCK OF AN EARTHQUAKE. 
347 
seemed, stifling, tliougk the thermometer rose only to 26’, 
The breeze, which generally refreshed the air from eight or 
nine o’clock in the evening, was no longer felt. The atmo- 
sphere was burning hot, and the parched and dusty ground 
was cracked on every side. On the 4th of November, about 
two in the afternoon, large clouds of peculiar blackness 
enveloped the high mountains of the Brigantine and the 
Tataraqual. They extended by degrees as far as the zenith. 
About four in the afternoon thunder was heard over our 
heads, at an immense height, not regularly rolling, but 
with a hollow and often interrupted sound. At the moment 
of the strongest electric explosion, at 4* 1 ’ 12', there were two 
shocks of earthquake, which followed each other at the 
interval of fifteen seconds. The people ran into the streets, 
uttering loud cries. M. Bonpland, who was leaning over 
a tabic examining plants, was almost thrown on the floor. 
1 felt the shock very strongly, though I was lying in a 
hammock. Its direction was from north to south, which 
is rare at Cumana. Slaves, who were drawing water from 
a _ well more than eighteen or twenty feet deep, near the 
river Manzanares, heard a noise like the explosion of a 
strong charge of gunpowder. The noise seemed to come 
from the bottom of the well; a very curious phenomenon, 
though very common in most of the countries of America 
which are exposed to earthquakes. 
_ A few minutes before the first shock there was a very 
violent blast of wind, followed by electrical rain falling 
in great drops. I immediately tided the atmospherical 
electricity by the electrometer of Volta. The small halls 
separated four lines; the electricity often changed from 
positive to negative, as is the case during storms, and, in 
the north of Europe, even sometimes in a fall of snow. The 
sky remained cloudy, and the blast of wind was followed 
by a dead calm, which lasted all night. The sunset pre- 
sented^ a picture of extraordinary magnificence. The thick 
veil of clouds was rent asunder, as in shreds, quite near 
the horizon ; the sun appeared at 12 degrees of altitude 
on a sky of indigo-blue. Its disk was enormously en- 
larged, distorted, and undulated toward the edges. The 
clouds were gilded ; and fascicles of divergent rays, reflect 
