Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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They Described To Us Their
Astonishment When, On The 4th Of February, 1797, They Observed The
Smoke Disappear In An
Instant, whilst no shock whatever was felt.
At that very moment, sixty-five leagues southward, between
Chimborazo, Tunguragua, and the
Altar (Capac-Urcu), the town of
Riobamba was overthrown by the most terrible earthquake on record.
Is it possible to doubt, from this coincidence of phenomena, that
the vapours issuing from the small apertures or ventanillas of the
volcano of Pasto had an influence on the pressure of those elastic
fluids which convulsed the earth in the kingdom of Quito, and
destroyed in a few minutes thirty or forty thousand inhabitants?
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, I have cited the Cordillera of
the Andes. Geological reasoning can be supported only by the
analogy of facts which are recent, and consequently well
authenticated: and in what other region of the globe could we find
greater and more varied volcanic phenomena than in that double
chain of mountains heaved up by fire? in that land where nature has
covered every mountain and every valley with her marvels? If we
consider a burning crater only as an isolated phenomenon, if we be
satisfied with merely 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.
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