Linnean Society. 75 
could be seen ; but the sea afterwards returning through the same 
channel with a great bore, flowed 20 feet over the town, carrying 
everything before it. This phenomenon was repeated three times. 
Mr. Alison says that the sea was reported to have receded, or rather 
the land to have risen, 2 or 3 feet, a difference having also taken place 
in the soundings in the bay; and that a rock, which was invisible pre- 
viously to the earthquake, was afterwards near the surface. 
Large fissures are stated to have been made in the earth, and water 
to have burst from some of them: the earth is also said to have opened 
and closed ; and near Los Angeles several hills to have disappeared, 
and others to have opened and vomited steam and black smoke. The 
harbour of the island of Santa Maria was destroyed, and the sea retired 
between 300 and 400 yards, while the reefs which surrounded the 
greater part of the island are said to have entirely disappeared. 
At the island of Juan Fernandez phenomena occurred similar to 
those which accompanied the destruction of Talcahuano. About a 
league from the shore the sea appeared to boil, a high column of water 
was thrown into the air, when the sea retired so far that a number of 
old anchors and brass guns became visible ;_ but it soon returned with 
great violence, carrying off all the houses of the convicts. A volcano 
also burst forth at the point where the sea was first agitated. The 
brig Glanmalin was in the latitude of Talcahuano, and about 100 miles 
to the westward of it, at the time of the earthquake, when the crew 
felt a shock as if the vessel had struck upon a rock. 
Mr. Alison also mentions the existence near Valparaiso of the re- 
cent marine shells 1400 feet above the level of the sea, and of recent 
marine shells being dug near Conuco for the purpose of making lime. 
In the bay of Valparaiso, he says, a rock which in 1817 could be passed 
over in a boat, is now dry, except at spring tides. 
LINNEAN SOCIETY. 
Nov. 17.—A notice, by Mr. White was read, ofan individual of the 
Great Black Woodpecker (Picus martius of Linnzus,) having been 
shot in 1834 at Billingford, near Scole Inn, Norfolk. The stuffed 
specimen is in the possession of Mr. Drake, a farmer of that place. 
The bird was shot in a moist natural wood, where the Rhamnus Fran- 
gula and Viburnum Opulus abound. Another of the same species was 
seen at the same time. 
The conclusion of Mr. Don’s “Descriptions of Indian Gentianee” 
were then read. . 
Among the numerous families which compose the class of Dicoty- 
ledonous plants, there is perhaps none so equally and generally dis- 
tributed over the surface of the globe as the Gentianee, extending 
almost to the extremities of both hemispheres, and occurring in every 
intermediate region wherever the elevation of the land and other local 
circumstances favour their development. By a comparison of the 
Floras of different countries they appear to constitute the proportion 
of about | to 83 of the phenogamous vegetation. By the indefatigable 
researches of Dr. Wallich and Mr. Royle, the number of species. of 
this order belonging to the Indian Flora has been more than doubled, 
and they now amount to about 50. Of the 13 genera into which 
L2 
