This silly belief is curious, because it shows that experience has taught them to observe that there exists a relation between the suppressed action of the volcanos, and the trembling of the ground.

It was necessary to apply the witchcraft to the point where their perception of cause and effect failed; and this was the closing of the volcanic vent.

This belief is the more singular in this particular instance because, according to Captain Fitz Roy, there is reason to believe that Antuco was noways affected.
The town of Concepcion was built in the usual Spanish fashion, with all the streets running at right angles to each other; one set ranging south-west by west, and the other set north-west by north.
The walls in the former direction certainly stood better than those in the latter; the greater number of the masses of brickwork were thrown down towards the north-east.

Both these circumstances perfectly agree with the general idea of the undulations having come from the south-west; in which quarter subterranean noises were also heard; for it is evident that the walls running south-west and north-east which presented their ends to the point whence the undulations came, would be much less likely to fall than those walls which, running north-west and south-east, must in their whole lengths have been at the same instant thrown out of the perpendicular; for the undulations, coming from the south-west, must have extended in north-west and south-east waves, as they passed under the foundations.

This may be illustrated by placing books edgeways on a carpet, and then, after the manner suggested by Michell, imitating the undulations of an earthquake: it will be found that they fall with more or less readiness, according as their direction more or less nearly coincides with the line of the waves.