Volcanoes in the Bay of Bengal. 341 



the Bay of Bengal is that contained in the first volume of the 

 Annual Register, 1776, reprinted in the Bengal Asiatic Trans- 

 actions of 1847.* • It was written by an officer on board a 

 French East Indiaman, and addressed to his friend at the 

 Hague : there seems no reason to question its perfect ac- 

 curacy. In July 1757, fires were seen from Pondicherry to 

 break out on the surface of the sea three or four leagues 

 from shore ; these blazed out with the greatest fury, throwitic,'' 

 up pumice stone and combustible matter. This was accom- 

 panied by a noise like thunder, or the discharge of heavy 

 ordnance. Ah' island, a leaguef in length and about th6' ^^ttt'e 

 in breadth, with a cone and briiter in the centre, thbn'sb^- 

 peared» A vast quantity of dead fish were afterwards seen 

 floating on the surface of the wat^t'.^d^strojr^d^bytlife 6Wl]^- 

 tion. The sea was some days afterwards so covered with 

 pumice stone that vessels found it difficult to make their way 

 through it, while they ran the risk of being burnt from tlib 

 showers of hot ashes with which the air was dat*kened. The 

 island seems speedily to have subsided again, as we hear no 

 further mention made of it. A shoal called the Goris Bank, 

 was seen by li.M.fe. Melville, in a line joining Pondicherryf 

 and Chittagoiig, and a shoal is noted on an old chart as 

 having been met in with by an American ship in the line 

 betwixt Pondicherry and Cheduba ; both thefee have since 

 then disappeared. Mr Piddington remarks that the middle 

 of last CQntury was the gi'eat epoch of earthquakes all over 



tne worlo: ^ „,, turf. ^ .. "-r f 



In 1750, CKili was visited by ' an earthquake, 1by Whicfi '(he 

 town of Conception was destroyed ; the sea rolled over it, 

 and the entire port from thenceforth became useless. The 

 whole shore seems to have sustained an upheaval of abotit 

 24 feet, and shells similar to those found in the adjoining 



T : .. , t ...... . i , .... L .. - ;'- ■'■' 



' * bengal Asiatic Transactions, 18i7, vol. xvi., p. 499. Iteportir and Asiatic 

 Researches, vol. i., p. 175. The papers of the Bengal Asiatic Society are in- 

 dexed r the vast ampunt Of most valuable Information contained in the Reports 

 «in only be found by reading them through. This is the case with nearly the 

 whole of that relating to volcanic phenomena. : • t>nA .*iuii : 



t Abridged from the Remarks of Mr Piddingtoii^«wiSePilrt>Ji^tef the erup- 

 tion. Bengal Asiatic Transactions, ?«r ««»'^. ' l"iiJ'H^. i" l*iaju«^l. liii^ 



