At My Arrival In Terra Firma, I Was Struck With The Connection Between The Destruction Of Cumana On The 14th Of December, 1797, And The Eruption Of The Volcanoes In The Smaller West India Islands.

This connection was again manifest in the destruction of Caracas on the 26th of March, 1812.

The volcano of Guadaloupe seemed in 1797 to have exercised a reaction on the coasts of Cumana. Fifteen years later, it was a volcano situated nearer the continent (that of St. Vincent), which appeared to have extended its influence as far as Caracas and the banks of Apure. Possibly, at both those periods, the centre of the explosion was, at an immense depth, equally distant from the regions towards which the motion was propagated at the surface of the globe.

From the beginning of 1811 to 1813, a vast superficies of the earth,* (* Between latitudes 5 and 36 degrees north, and 31 and 91 degrees west longitude from Paris.) bound by the meridian of the Azores, the valley of the Ohio, the Cordilleras of New Grenada, the coasts of Venezuela, and the volcanoes of the smaller West India Islands, was shaken throughout its whole extent, by commotions which may be attributed to subterranean fires. The following series of phenomena seems to indicate communications at enormous distances. On the 30th of January, 1811, a submarine volcano broke out near the island of St. Michael, one of the Azores. At a place where the sea was sixty fathoms deep, a rock made its appearance above the surface of the waters.

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