Upraismg of Land in Java douhkd. 307 



neath, the sea. Extensive provinces, nay, entire kingdoms, now 

 perform the same feat. The existence of craters of elevation is 

 by some still considered doubtful ; but it is an accredited fact 

 that mountains and mountain chains hav^ risen, either ^£?r saU 

 tum or per gradus. All the strata have been raised ; and all 

 unstratified rocks would doubtless have been raised also, but 

 that some have risen of themselves. The bed of the sea has 

 been elevated again and again. Continents, too, have been 

 raised, though " by an operation distinct from that which raised 

 the primary strata." 



The arguments advanced in favour of these doctrines are de- 

 rived either from observation, or from induction. 



It is stated by Von Hoff, that, in the year 1771, several tracts 

 of land were upraised in Java, and that a new bank made its 

 appearance opposite the mouth of the river Batavia. The au- 

 thorities cited for the effect of this and several other earthquakes 

 mentioned in the same place by this author, are Sir Stamford 

 Raffles, John Prior's Voyage in the Indian Seas, and Hist. Gen. 

 des Voy, tooa. ii. p. 401. Mr Lyell has cited the first of these 

 only, but no such fact is noted in either edition of the work of 

 Sir Stamford Raffles. The other authorities adduced by Von 

 Hoff* I have been unable to consult ; but from the Appendix to 

 the Batavian Transactions (which contains an apparently authen- 

 tic account of all the recorded earthquakes that have taken place 

 in Java during a century and a half), it would seem, that, in the 

 year 1771, in which the uprising is said to have happened in 

 that island, there was no earthquake at all. 



The earthquake of Chili in 1822 has been so much* insisted 

 on, that it requires detailed consideration. Of this event an ac- 

 count by Mrs Graham is inserted in our Transactions. I am 

 deeply sensible of the honour that lady conferred on the Society 

 by her obliging compliance with the request which elicited her 

 narrative, and it is only the importance of its contents which 

 could induce me to subject them to the test of rigid examina- 

 tion. 



According to this account, " it appeared, on the morning af- 

 ter the earthquake, that the whole line of coast from north to 



• Bakewell's Geology, edition 4, pp. 98, 504. Lyell, voL i. pp. 401, 455. 

 De la Beche's Manual, edition 2. Scrope on Volcanoes, p. 209. 



p2 



