XVI 
RAIN AND EARTHQUAKES 
375 
The valley of Copiapo, forming a mere ribbon of green in 
a desert, runs in a very southerly direction ; so that it is of 
considerable length to its source in the Cordillera. The valleys 
of Guasco and Copiapo may both be considered as long narrow 
islands, separated from the rest of Chile by deserts of rock 
instead of by salt water. Northward of these, there is one 
other very miserable valley, called Paposo, which contains 
about two hundred souls ; and then there extends the real 
desert of Atacama—a barrier far worse than the most turbulent 
ocean. After staying a few days at Potrero Seco, I proceeded 
up the valley to the house of Don Benito Cruz, to whom I had 
a letter of introduction. I found him most hospitable ; indeed 
it is impossible to bear too strong testimony to the kindness 
with which travellers are received in almost every part of South 
America. The next day I hired some mules to take me by 
the ravine of Jolquera into the central Cordillera. On the 
second night the weather seemed to foretell a storm of snow or 
rain, and whilst lying in our beds we felt a trifling shock of an 
earthquake. 
The connexion between earthquakes and the weather has 
been often disputed : it appears to me to be a point of great 
interest, which is little understood. Humboldt has remarked 
in one part of the Persotial Narrative} that it would be difficult 
for any person who had long resided in New Andalusia, or in 
Lower Peru, to deny that there exists some connexion between 
these phenomena ; in another part, however, he seems to think 
the connexion fanciful. At Guayaquil, it is said that a heavy 
shower in the dry season is invariably followed by an earth¬ 
quake. In Northern Chile, from the extreme infrequency of 
rain, or even of weather foreboding rain, the probability of 
accidental coincidences becomes very small; yet the inhabitants 
are here most firmly convinced of some connexion between 
the state of the atmosphere and of the trembling of the ground : 
I was much struck by this, when mentioning to some people at 
Copiapo that there had been a sharp shock at Coquimbo : they 
1 Vol. iv. p. ii, and vol. ii. p. 217. For the remarks on Guayaquil see 
Silliman’s Journ. vol. xxiv. p. 384. For those on Tacna by Mr. Hamilton, see 
I Vans, of British Association, 1840. For those on Coseguina see Mr. Caldcleugh 
in Phil. 2 rans. 1835. In the former edition, I collected several references on the 
coincidences between sudden falls in the barometer and earthquakes ; and between 
earthquakes and meteors. 
