306 On the relaUve Age of the 



the geologists who reject the theory of upraisings stop short. 

 This island, according to them, was a great mass of pumice 

 stones^ detached from the bottom of the sea by the earthquake 

 which happened the evening before its first appearance. But, 

 if this were the case, how is the immobility of the floating masa 

 to be accounted for ? It cannot be supposed that it always 

 touched the bottom of the sea, for then there would be recog- 

 nised the existence of a true raising. Now, if the mass floated, 

 it is necessary to say when, and in what manner, it became fixed ; 

 whence it derived its support, \yhat were the causes of enlarge- 

 ment and gradual ascent of which the observers make mention, 

 and which, in three weeks, transformed a mere rock, hardly 

 visible, into an island half a mile in circumference. So long 

 as these questions are not answered, the supposition of a raising 

 up of the bottom of the sea will remain the only plausible ex- 

 planation that has yet been given of the phenomena by which 

 the appearance in 1707 of the Jirst new island, in the harbour 

 of Santorin, was accompanied. 



I shall now give a third example : — On the 19th November 

 1822, at a quarter after ten at night, the cities of Valparaiso, 

 Melipilla, Quillota, and Casa-Blanca, in Chili, were destroyed 

 by a frightful earthquake, which lasted three minutes. The 

 following days, in going along the coast over an extent of thirty 

 leagues, several observers perceived that it was greatly raised ; 

 for on a shore where the tide never rises more than from one or 

 two yards,, any elevation of the ground is easily noticed. 



The following are some of the observations from which this 

 remarkable inference was deduced. 



At Valparaiso, near the mouth of the Concon, and to the 

 north of Quintero, there were seen in the sea, near the shore, 

 rocks which no person had previously seen. A vessel which 

 was wrecked on the coast, and whose remains the curious went 

 to examine at low water in boats, was laid perfectly dry by the 

 earthquake. In walking to a considerable distance along the sea- 

 shore, near Quintero, Lord Cochrane and Mrs Maria Graham 

 found that the water, even when the tide was up, did not reach 

 the rocks, on which there were sticking oysters, mussels, and other 

 shells, whose animals, but recently dead, were in a state of pu- 

 trefaction. Lastly, The entire banks of the Lake of Quintero, 



