Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/449

Rh : it is therefore natural to infer, that it was an iris produced by the before- mentioned cause.

"The variety of its colours was the effecct, not merely of the decomposition of the light, but likewise of the quantity refracted: where it was least, the black was represented; and where greatest, the ash-colour. As the beams of the moon extinguished the faint splendour of these stars, it is not extraordinary that, on its rising, we should have been deprived of this rare phenomenon, as would happen in the case of the lunar irises, on the approach of the blushing dawn of Aurora.

"That goddess has already begun to illumine the plains; and the cries of the shepherd oblige me to put out the candle, to terminate my philosophical meditations, and to proceed to my agricultural labours."

In the course of the year 1791, five earthquakes, four of which occurred in the capital, and the fifth in the city of Pasco, are recorded in the Peruvian Mercuries. The details relative to them are introduced by the following reflections.

There is not any country in the world, in which naturalists ought to apply themselves more sedulously to the observation of earthquakes, than in ours. The greater part of their history presents tragical scenes, in which the violent convulsions of the earth have not only destroyed the fine produ6tions of the hands of man, but have likewise deranged many of those of Nature, by which they were supported. As not any physical revolution happens in the globe, without being preceded by certain warnings emanating from the very dispositions whence they originate; if, by the dint of a constant application, we could succeed in characterizing them, we might perhaps escape many of these ravages. The annals of natural philosophy relate,