As to the volcanic records of the great West, they may be read in the chains of mountains that stretch from Alaska 10,000 miles to Tierra del Fuego. In the giant geysers and hot springs of the Yellowstone Park are evidences of existing fires in the United States; while as to the extent of seismic disturbances of the past, the famous lava beds of Dakota, in which Captain Jack, the Modoc chief, held out against government troops till starved into submission, are volcanic areas full of mute testimony regarding nature’s convulsions.
How soon, if ever, some of these volcanic areas of the United States may burst forth into fresh activity, no one can predict. If the slumbering giants should arouse themselves and shake off the rock fetters which bind their strength, the results might be terrible to contemplate. Those who dwell in the shadow of such peaks as are believed to be extinct, become indifferent to such a possible threat after many years of immunity, but such a disaster as that of St. Pierre arouses thought and directs scrutiny once more upon the ancient volcanic peaks of the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevadas.
CHAPTER XXXI.
SOUTH AMERICAN CITIES DESTROYED.
BY TRUMBULL WHITE.
Earthquakes Ravage the Coast Cities of Peru and the Neighboring Countries—Spanish Capitals in the New World Frequent Sufferers—Lima, Callao and Caracas Devastated—Tidal Waves Accompany the Earthquakes—Juan Fernandez Island Shaken—Fissures Engulf Men and Animals—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.