The miners ascended
in a state of alarm. Conversely, the workmen in the mines of Falun and
Persberg felt nothing of the shocks which in November, 1823, spread dismay
among the inhabitants above ground.
As the mountain chains appear to be raised on fissures, the walls of the
cavities may perhaps favor the direction of undulations parallel to them;
occasionally, however, the waves of commotion intersect several chains
almost perpenducularly. Thus we see them simultaneously breaking through
the littoral chain of Venezuela and the Sierra Parime. In Asia, shocks of
earthquakes have been propagated from Lahore and from the foot of the
Himalaya (22d of January, 1832) transversely across the chain of the Hindoo
Chou to Badakschan, the upper Oxus, and even to Bokhara.*
[footnote] *Sir Alex. Burnes, 'Travels in Bokhara', vol. i., p. 18; and
Wathen, 'Mem. on the Usbek State', in the 'Journal of the Asiatic Society of
Bengal', vol. iii., p. 337.
The circles of commotion unfortunately expand occasionally in consequence of
a single and usually violent earthquake. It is only since the destruction
of Cumana, on the 14th of December, 1797, that shocks on the southern coast
have been felt in the mica slate rocks of the peninsula of Maniquarez,
situated opposite to the chalk hills of the main land.
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