168 
8CBTZSEAKEAN THUNDER. 
1792. The group of volcanos in the Caribbee Islands 
resembles that of the volcanos of Quito and Los Pastos ; 
craters with which the subterranean fire does not appear to 
communicate are ranged on the same line with burning 
craters, and alternate with them. 
Notwithstanding the intimate connection manifested in 
the action of the volcanos of the smaller West India Islands 
and the earthquakes of Terra Firma, it often happens that 
shocks felt in the volcanic archipelago are not propagated to 
the island of Trinidad, or to the coasts of Caracas and 
Cumana. This phenomenon is in no way surprising : even 
in the Caribbees the commotions are often confined to one 
place. The great eruption of the volcano in St. Yincent’s 
did not occasion an earthquake at Martinique or Guada- 
loupe. Loud explosions were heard there as well as at 
Venezuela, but the ground was not convulsed. 
These explosions must not be confounded with the rolling 
noise which everywhere precedes the slightest commotions ; 
they are often heard on the banks of the Orinoco, and (as 
we were assured by persons living on the spot) between the 
Rio Arauca and Cuchivero. Father Morello relates that at 
the Mission of Cabruta the subterranean noise so much 
resembles discharges of small cannon (pedreros) that it 
has seemed as if a battle were being fought at a distance. 
On the 21st of October, 1766, the day of the terrible earth- 
quake which desolated the province of New Andalusia, the 
ground was simultaneously shaken at Cumana, at Caracas, 
at Maracavbo, and on the banks of the Casanare, the Meta, 
the Orinoco, and the Ventuario. Father Gili has described 
to Dupuget, 73G toi.es. Between Vaucliu and the feldspar-lavas of the 
Paps of Carbet is found, as M. Moreau de Jonnes asserts, in a neck of 
land, a region of early basalt called La Roche Carree). Thermal waters 
of Prccheur and Lameutin. — Dominica, completely volcanic. — Guada- 
loupe, an active volcano, the height of which, according to Lcboucher, is 
79U toises ; according to Ainie, 850 toises. — Montserrat, a solfatara ; fine 
porphyritic lavas with large crystals of feldspar and hornblende near 
Galloway, according to Mr. Nugent. — Nevis, a solfatara. — St. Christo- 
pher’s, a solfatara at Mount Misery.— St. Eustache, a crater of an extin- 
guished volcano, surrounded by pumice-stone. (Trinidad, which is 
traversed by a chain of primitive slate, appears to have anciently formed 
a part of the littoral chain of Cumana, and not of the system of the 
mountains of the Caribbee Islands.) 
