" To their minds an earthquake foretold
rain as surely as rain foretold abundant pasture. Certainly it did
so happen that on the very day of the earthquake that shower of
rain fell which I have described as in ten days' time producing a
thin sprinkling of grass. At other times rain has followed
earthquakes at a period of the year when it is a far greater
prodigy than the earthquake itself: this happened after the shock
of November 1822, and again in 1829 at Valparaiso; also after that
of September 1833, at Tacna. A person must be somewhat habituated
to the climate of these countries to perceive the extreme
improbability of rain falling at such seasons, except as a
consequence of some law quite unconnected with the ordinary course
of the weather. In the cases of great volcanic eruptions, as that
of Coseguina, where torrents of rain fell at a time of the year
most unusual for it, and "almost unprecedented in Central America,"
it is not difficult to understand that the volumes of vapour and
clouds of ashes might have disturbed the atmospheric equilibrium.
Humboldt extends this view to the case of earthquakes unaccompanied
by eruptions; but I can hardly conceive it possible that the small
quantity of aeriform fluids which then escape from the fissured
ground can produce such remarkable effects.
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