Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/451

Rh. This rain was extraordinary, not relatively to its station, it being that of the waters in the mountainous territory, but with reference to the quantity, seeing that, although it did not last for the space of two hours, it formed new rivers, destroyed various plantations, and desolated several towns.

On the 21st, at three in the afternoon, another earthquake was felt in Lima. It was short, and but of small intensity. Its direction was the same with that of the preceding one of the 8th; and it may thence be inferred that each of them had the same origin.

On the 4th of July of the above year, at half past five in the morning, Lima was subjected to another shock of an earthquake. Its direction was N. E. S. W.; its duration somewhat less than a minute; and it was of middle intensity.

On the 14th of October, at seventeen minutes after nine o'clock at night, a violent shock of an earthquake, which lasted five seconds, was felt in the city of Pasco. Its direction was N. E. S. W., and its motion undulatory. The sky was clouded, and very obscure in the N. and N. E. The noise by which it was accompanied was very loud, and resembled the regular discharges of a regiment, or those described in the Literary Memoirs of Great Britain, as the effect of the meteor which appeared there on the night of the 1 9th of March, 1718. Earthquakes being very unusual in the above city, this one excited a particular surprize, pn account of the singularity of the noise and movement.

The order of succession both of the one and the other, unquestionably arose from this circumstance, that there being in all those places, immense depositions of pyrites, several mines of that substance, stationed from distance to distance, municated