CAPITAL OF VENEZUELA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXV, Issue 9, 12 January 1903, Page 4

CAPITAL OF VENEZUELA.

A correspondent supplies the Melbourne Argus with the following interesting note on Caracas, the city which is now occupying a Urge share of , public atteatien: — Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, is nollnd the city if earthquakes, causing an average yearly damage amounting to the equivalent of a psr capita tsx of four dollars. So aubjest is the city t» earthquakes that every house has its laga securo, or safe t-ide, where thß inhabitants place their fragile property. This la»a securo is the north side, and it was chosen because about two out of every three destructive shocks traversed ■ the city from west to east, to that the 'walls in these side? of a bulling have bean stricken broadside oa. Projecting bwetoent corners (giving th i house a slightly pyramidal appearance) have been found beter than absolutely perpendicular walls; mortised cornerstones and roof beams have saved many lives, when the central walls have split from top to bottom- There are no' many is :latei buildings in the city. In man? streets broad iron girders, riveted to the wall, about a foot above the house-door, run from house to house along the frant of an entire square. The ro >fs are flat, or flat-tarr iced ; the chimney-flues terming neir tho eavrs in a perforated lid. When the inhabitants of Ventztifla first siw the - Spaniards building tall houses they 'oil them they were l.u ldir.g their own sepulchres. The city of Caracas was destroyed by tremendous earthquakes, and Humbo!ds pays:—"The place " which 1 once visited and de-eiibed has disappeared, and on the ram < spo% oo the ground fissured in vuious directions, another city is slowly rising. The bfaps cf luins which »ere the grave of s numerous popul »t : o i are becoming anew tte habitation i f mpn." The f'liock felt at Caracas in the month • of December, 1811, was 1 lionly nne which preceded In terrible catastrophe of March 26tb, 1812. A grra* drought prevailed at this pr od in the province of Yfnezuela. Not a single dnp of rain had f .lien at (Jaroc.is, Oi- in the country to the dis'atce of 99 leaguos round, during five months preceding the destruction cf tha capital. March 26th was a remarkably hot day; the " air was calm and tha sky unclouded. It was Ascension Day, acd a great portion'of the population was assembled in . tha churches. Nothing seemed to presage the calamities cf the day. At seven minutes after four in the afternoon the first shock was felt. It was sufficiently forcible to mak9 the bells of the churches toll, and it listed five or six seconds. During that interval the ground was in a continual undulating movement, and seemed to heave up like ft boiling liquid. The danger was thought to depart, when a tremendous subterranean noise was heard, resembling the rolling of thuader, but louder and of longer continuance than that heard within the tropics in the time of Btornif. This noise preceded a perpendicular motion of three or four seconds, followed by an undulating movement somewhat longer. Nothing could resist the perpendicular and the trans- . Terse undulations. The shacks were in opposite directions, proaeeding from east to west and from north to south. The city of Caracas was entirely overthrown, and between 9000 and 10,000 of the inhabitants were buried under the rains of the heuses and churches. The crowd was so great within the churches that 4000 persons were Ciiished by the fall of the roofs. At Caracas, which is nr-arly 2900 ft. above - sea level, the mean annual temperature is only 67 degrees, exceeding that of London by less than 17 degrees. The atmosphere is coaled by the descending currents of air, and by the mi-ts which envelop the lofty summit of the Siila -• during a great p irt of the year. The thermometer at night at Caracas often descends to 12 degrees The height of is buta third of that of Mx-xico, Quito, and Santa Fe' de Bogot?r; yet of all the capitals of Sptnish America which en j iy a cool and delicious clima* e in the midst of the torrid zone, Caracas is nearest to the coast. What a privilege for a city to possess a seaport at 10 mi'es' di-tance, atd to ba situated among mount-tins on a table-land which would produce whi a 1 if the cultivation of the c-ffee tree wero not preferied.