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innumerable shocks felt in various parts of the world, surely bear 
out this assertion, and it appears strange that such an authority 
as Mr. Malet should state as he does in a letter to the Morning 
Post, “no recorded earthquake ever took place without a 
subsidence.” To take one instance for example, the Chilian 
earthquake of 1822, alluded to by Mr. Casson in a letter to the © 
same paper, raised permanently an area estimated at, I believe, 
about 190,000 square miles to an additional height of three feet. 
In this case there would be no question of subsidence of adjacent 
land, for there was the sea level to go by, even had it been possible 
to imagine that the remainder of the American continent subsided. 
The same argument would apply to numberless cases where vast 
upheavals have taken place, naturally accompanied in some 
instances by a corresponding sinking of the surface in other parts. 
The accounts given of nearly all the most important earthquakes, 
ancient or modern, appear to me so clear on this point that I 
cannot understand how anyone can pretend to trace their origin 
to a mere sinking of the surface into cavities. I have never had 
personal experience of a really serious earthquake, but I have 
felt a great number of shocks, some of considerable violence, in 
different parts of the world, especially in Japan, where I have 
seen my wooden hut rock to and fro like a vessel at sea; the 
surface of the ground sometimes rising and falling, at others 
moving horizontally, and occasionally the two motions combined ; 
yet, I cannot recall any instance in which there was any apparent 
subsidence after the shocks had passed. Of course there have 
been cases in which subsidence alone has produced a terrible 
catastrophe, such as the last disastrous occurrence at Casamiciola, 
which according to so trustworthy an authority as Professor 
Palmieri was a subsidence only, and though similar in its results, 
could in that case scarcely be called an earthquake ; but even there 
I think it is open to question whether a slight shock did not put 
the finishing touch to the undermining process. If not we must 
disbelieve altogether the many accounts of premonitory signs, 
