The sound was certainly
not propagated through the air, but through the earth, and at a great depth.
During the violent earthquake of New Granada, in February, 1835,
subterranean thunder was heard simultaneously at Popayan, Bogota, Santa
Marta, and Caracas (where it continued for seven hours without any movement
of the ground), in Haiti, Jamaica, and on the Lake of Nicaragua.
These phenomena of sound, when unattended by any perceptible shocks, produce
a peculiarly deep impression even on persons who have lived in countries
where the earth has been frequently exposed to shocks. A striking and
unparalleled instance of uninterrupted subterranean noise, unaccompanied by
any trace of an earthquake, is the phenomenon known in the Mexican elevated
plateaux by the name of the "roaring and the subterranean thunder)
('bramidos y truenos subterraneos') of Guanaxuato.*
[footnote] *On the 'bramidos' of Guanaxuato, see my 'Essai Polit. sur la
Nouv. Espagne', t. i., p. 303. The subterranean noise, unaccompanied with
any appreciable shock, in the deep mines and on the surface (the town of
Guanaxuata lies 6830 feet above the level of the sea), was not heard in the
neighboring elevated plains, but only in the mountainous parts of the
Sierra, from the Cuesta de los Aguilares, near Marfil, to the north of Santa
Rosa.
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