| Boys. | Girls. | Total. | |
| In marriage | 410 | 412 | 822 |
| Not in marriage | 432 | 428 | 860 |
| 842 | 840 | 1,682 |
The number of births not in marriage (860) is remarkable, and no less so is the number of dead children exposed, which, during the above interval, was 495. These are most decided proofs of the immorality and degraded state of manners prevailing in Lima, particularly among the colored part of the population. Though there is no certain evidence of the fact, yet there is reason to conjecture that a considerable number of those infants are destroyed by the mothers. Of the children born out of marriage, nearly two-thirds, and of those exposed dead, full four-fifths are Mulattos.
The important annual surplus of deaths over births is a matter of serious consideration for Lima. The above tables show, in the course of ten months, a surplus of 562 deaths. By a comparison of the lists of births and deaths from 1826 to 1842, I find that on an average there are annually 550 more deaths than births. It would lead me too far to endeavor to investigate all the grounds of this disparity, but I may observe that one of the causes, unquestionably, is the common, though punishable crime of producing abortion.
Along the whole coast of Peru the atmosphere is almost uniformly in a state of repose. It is not illuminated by the lightning's flash, or disturbed by the roar of the thunder: no deluges of rain, no fierce hurricanes destroy the fruits of the fields, and with them the hopes of the husbandman. Even fire appears here to have lost its annihilating power, and the work of human hands seems to be sacred from its attack.[37] But the mildness of the elements above ground is frightfully counterbalanced by their subterranean fury.
Lima is frequently visited by earthquakes, and several times the city has been reduced to a mass of ruins. At an average forty-five shocks may be counted on in a year. Most of them occur in the latter part of October, in November, December, January, May, and June. Experience gives reason to expect the visitation of two desolating earthquakes in a century. The period between the two is from forty to sixty years. The most considerable catastrophes experienced in Lima since Europeans have visited the west coast of South America, happened in the years 1586, 1630, 1687, 1713, 1746, 1806. There is reason to fear that in the course of a few years this city may be the prey of another such visitation.
The slighter shocks are sometimes accompanied by a noise; at other times, they are merely perceptible by the motion of the earth. The subterraneous noises are manifold. For the most part they resemble the rattling of a heavy loaded wagon, driven rapidly over arches. They usually accompany the shock, seldom precede it, and only in a few cases do they follow it; sounding like distant thunder. On one occasion the noise appeared to me like a groan from the depth of the earth, accompanied by sounds like the crepitation of wood in partitions when an old house is consumed by fire.
Of the movements, the horizontal vibrations are the most frequent, and they cause the least damage to the slightly-built habitations. Vertical shocks are most severe; they rend the walls, and raise the houses out of their foundations. The greatest vertical shock I ever felt was on the 4th of July, 1839, at half-past seven in the evening, when I was in the old forests of the Chanchamoyo territory. Before my hut there was an immense stem of a felled tree, which lay with its lower end on the stump of the root. I was leaning against it and reading, when suddenly, by a violent movement, the stem rose about a foot and a half, and I was thrown backwards over it. By the same shock the neighboring river, Aynamayo, was dislodged from its bed, and its course thereby changed for a considerable length of way.
I have had no experience of the rotatory movements of earthquakes. According to the statements of all who have observed them, they are very destructive, though uncommon. In Lima I have often felt a kind of concussion, which accords with that term in the strictest sense of the word. This movement had nothing in common with what may be called an oscillation, a shock, or a twirl: it was a passing sensation, similar to that which is felt when a man seizes another unexpectedly by the shoulder, and shakes him; or like the vibration felt on board a ship when the anchor is cast, at the moment it strikes the ground. I believe it is caused by short, rapid, irregular horizontal oscillations. The irregularity of the vibrations is attended by much danger, for very slight earthquakes of that kind tear away joists from their joinings, and throw down roofs, leaving the walls standing, which, in all other kinds of commotion, usually suffer first, and most severely.
Humboldt says that the regularity of the hourly variations of the magnetic needle and the atmospheric pressure is undisturbed on earthquake days within the tropics. In seventeen observations, which I made during earthquakes in Lima with a good Lefevre barometer, I found, in fifteen instances, the position of the mercury quite unaltered. On one occasion, shortly before a commotion, I observed it 2·4 lines lower than it had been two hours before. Another time, I observed, also on the approach of the shock and during the twelve following hours, a remarkable rising and sinking in the column. During these observations the atmosphere was entirely tranquil.
Atmospheric phenomena are frequent, but not infallible prognostics of an earthquake. I have known individuals in Lima, natives of the coast, who were seldom wrong in predicting an earthquake, from their observation of the atmosphere. In many places great meteors have been seen before the commotion. Before the dreadful earthquake of 1746, there were seen fiery vapors (exhalaciones encendidas) rising out of the earth. On the island of San Lorenzo these phenomena were particularly remarked.