-Peculiar Effects Observed.=

The discovery of America, in 1492, brought a great accession to the
number of recorded earthquakes, as South and Central America and the
islands near them have furnished almost innumerable instances of the
phenomena.

The first of the known earthquakes in the western hemisphere occurred
in 1530, and the Gulf of Paria, with the adjacent coast of Cumana, in
Venezuela, was the scene of the catastrophe. It was accompanied by a
great sea-wave, the tide suddenly rising twenty-four feet, and then
retiring. There were also opened in the earth several large fissures,
which discharged black, fetid salt water and petroleum. A mountain
near the neighboring Gulf of Caracas was split in twain, and has since
remained in its cloven condition.

The coast of Peru was visited by an earthquake in the year 1586, and
again in 1687. On the first occasion the shock was accompanied by a
great sea-wave eighty-four feet high, which inundated the country for
two leagues inland. There was still another dreadful convulsion on
this coast in 1746, when the sea twice retreated and dashed in again
with a tremendous wave about eighty feet high, overwhelming Lima and
four other seaports. A portion of the coast sank down, producing a
new bay at Callao; and in several mountains in the neighborhood there
were formed large fissures whence water and mud gushed forth. On May
24, 1751, the city of Concepcion, in Chili, was entirely swallowed up
during an earthquake, and the sea rolled over its site. The ancient
port was destroyed, and a new town was afterwards erected ten miles
inland. The great sea-wave, which accompanied this earthquake, rolled
in upon the shores of the island of Juan Fernandez, and overwhelmed a
colony which had been recently established there. The coast near the
ancient port of Concepcion was considerably raised on this occasion,
and the high water mark now stands twenty-four feet below its former
level.

The coast of Caracas and the adjacent island of Trinidad were
violently convulsed in 1776, and the whole city of Cumana was reduced
to ruins. The shocks were continued for upwards of a year, and were at
first repeated almost hourly. There were frequent eruptions of
sulphurous water from fissures in the ground, and an island in the
Orinoco disappeared.

Rihamba must have stood, it would appear, almost immediately over the
focus of the dreadful earthquake of February 4, 1797. This unfortunate
city was si