It is singular that Pliny, at the end of his
fanciful theory of earthquakes, names the entire frightful phenomenon a
subterranean storm; not so much in consequence of the rolling sound which
frequently accompanies the shock, as because the elastic forces, concussive
by their tension, accumulate in the interior of the earth when they are
absent in the atmosphere! "Ventos in causa esse non dubium reor. Neque
enim unquam intemiscunt terre, nisi sopito mari, coeloque adeo tranquillo,
ut volatus avium non pendeant, subtracto omni spiritu qui vehit; nec unquam
nisi post ventos conditos, scilicet in venas et cavernas ejus occulto
afflatu. Neque aliad est in terra tremor, quam in nube toonitruum; nec
hiatus aliud quam cum fulmen erumpit, incluso spiritu luctante et ad
libertatem exire nitente." (Plin., ii., 79.) The germs of almost every
thing that has been observed of imagined on the causes of earthquakes, up to
the present day, may be found in Seneca, 'Nat. Quaest.', vi., 4-31.
The fallacy of this popular opinion is not only refuted by my own
experience, but likewise by the observations of all those who have lived
many years in districts where, as in Cumana, Quito, Peru, and Chili, the
earth is frequently and violently agitated.
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