Geological Society. 227 



but their height, in some places 700 feet above the Black Sea, 

 and 1000 feet above the Caspian, precludes the possibility of 

 this. 



The author, after enumerating and describing the series of 

 the above-mentioned beds, and their accompanying fossils, 

 concludes with remarks on the probable extension of the 

 Caspian Sea, and the sea of Aral, and their connexion with 

 the Black Sea by means of the low steppe. 



A letter from Mrs. Maria Graham to Henry Warburtou, 

 Esq. V.P.G.S., was read, giving an account of the effects of the 

 Earthquakes which visited the coast of Chili in 1822 and 1823. 



The first shock by which the towns of Valparaiso, Melipilla 

 and Quillota were nearly destroyed, was felt at a quarter past 

 10 o'clock on the evening of Tuesday the 19th of November 

 1822; and from this time continual shocks were felt daily 

 until the 18th of January, when the authoress ceased to reside 

 in Chili. These shocks are said not to have terminated wholly 

 so late as September last. The sensation experienced during 

 the more violent shocks was that of the earth being suddenly 

 heaved up in a direction from N. to S., and then falling down 

 again, a transverse motion being now and then felt. On the 

 19th of November a general tremour was felt, and a sound 

 heard like that of vapour bursting out, similar to the tremour 

 and sound which the authoress observed while standing on 

 the cone of Vesuvius during the jets of fire at the eruption of 

 1818. In all the alluvial valleys in the neighbourhood of 

 Quintero, 30 miles N. of Valparaiso, quantities of water and 

 sand were forced up, which covered the plain of Vina a la Mar 

 with cones or hillocks four feet high. 



The promontory of Quintero, consisting of granite covered 

 by sandy soil, was cracked in various directions down to the 

 sea; and the cracks occasioned by the earthquake in the gra- 

 nite on the beach were parallel to the more ancient rents in 

 the same rock. 



On the morning of the 20th, after the first earthquake the 

 whole line of coast from N. to S. to the distance of 100 miles 

 was found to have been raised out of the sea ; the elevation at 

 Quintero being about four feet, that at Valparaiso about three 

 feet, beds of oysters and muscles, adhering to the rock on 

 which they grew, being seen lying dry on the beach. 



Similar lines of beach with shells are found parallel to the 

 coast to the height of 50 feet above the sea, which probably 

 have been occasioned by earthquakes which have in former 

 years visited Chili. 



The earthquake of the 1 9th was felt along the coast to the 

 distance of 1 i-00 miles at least. 



Ff2 ljnna:an 



