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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(* In The Town Of Guanaxuato, In
Mexico, These Thunders Lasted From The 9th Of January Till The 12th
Of February, 1784.
Guanaxuato is situated forty leagues north of
the volcano of Jorullo, and sixty leagues north west of the volcano
of Popocatepetl.
In places nearer these two volcanoes, three
leagues distant from Guanaxuato, the subterranean thunders were not
heard. The noise was circumscribed within a very narrow space, in
the region of a primitive schist, which approaches a
transition-schist, containing the richest silver mines of the known
world, and on which rest trap-porphyries, slates, and diabasis
(grunstein.))
In proportion as equinoctial America shall increase in culture and
population, and the system of volcanoes of the central table-land
of Mexico, of the Caribbee Islands, of Popayan, of los Pastos, and
Quito, shall be more attentively observed, the connection of
eruptions and of earthquakes, which precede and sometimes accompany
those eruptions, will be more generally recognized. The volcanoes
just mentioned, particularly those of the Andes, which rise above
the enormous height of two thousand five hundred toises, present
great advantages for observation. The periods of their eruptions
are singularly regular. They remain thirty or forty years without
emitting scoriae, ashes, or even vapours. I could not perceive the
smallest trace of smoke on the summit of Tunguragua or Cotopaxi. A
gust of vapour issuing from the crater of Mount Vesuvius scarcely
attracts the attention of the inhabitants of Naples, accustomed to
the movements of that little volcano, which throws out scoriae
sometimes during two or three years successively.
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