quired all the residents in the various districts under his authority
to send in a statement of the circumstances which occurred within their
own knowledge; but, valuable as were their communications, they are
often calculated to excite rather than to satisfy the curiosity of the
geologist. They mention that similar effects, though in a less degree,
had, about seven years before, accompanied an eruption of Carang Assam,
a volcano in the island of Bali, west of Sumatra; but no particulars of
that great catastrophe are recorded.[649]

_Caraccas_, 1812.--On the 26th of March, 1812, several violent shocks of
an earthquake were felt in Caraccas. The surface undulated like a
boiling liquid, and terrific sounds were heard underground. The whole
city with its splendid churches was in an instant a heap of ruins,
under which 10,000 of the inhabitants were buried. On the 5th of April,
enormous rocks were detached from the mountains. It was believed that
the mountain Silla lost from 300 to 360 feet of its height by
subsidence; but this was an opinion not founded on any measurement. On
the 27th of April, a volcano in St. Vincent's threw out ashes; and, on
the 30th, lava flowed from its crater into the sea, while its explosions
were heard at a distance equal to that between Vesuvius and Switzerland,
the sound being transmitted, as Humboldt supposes, through the ground.
During the earthquake which destroyed Caraccas, an immense quantity of
water was thrown out at Valecillo, near Valencia, as also at Porto
Cabello, through openings in the earth; and in the Lake Maracaybo the
water sank. Humboldt observed that the Cordilleras, composed of gneiss
and mica slate, and the country immediately at their feet, were more
violently shaken than the plains.[650]

_South Carolina and New Madrid, Missouri_, 1811-12.--Previous to the
destruction of La Guayra and Caraccas, in 1812, earthquakes were felt in
South Carolina; and the shocks continued till those cities were
destroyed. The valley also of the Mississippi, from the village of New
Madrid to the mouth of the Ohio in one direction, and to the St. Francis
in another, was convulsed in such a degree as to create new lakes and
islands. It has been remarked by Humboldt in his Cosmos, that the
earthquake of New Madrid presents one of the few examples on record of
the incessant quaking of the ground for several successive months _far
from any volcano_. Flint, the geographer, who visited the country sev