160 Geological Society. 
and the Cruz de Reyes. He also never found the least trace of the 
above productions, except in situations covered by the tide. 
After the earthquake, Mr. Cuming resided in a house in the Arse- 
nal, where the spring tides came up to the same mark as they did pre- 
viously to that event. He refers especially to the tides of 1822 and 
1823. 
Another circumstance which convinced Mr. Cuming that no change 
of level had taken place was the existence of a small detached rock 
opposite the Estanco, half-way between the Custom-house and the 
Market-place, and about fifty yards from the walls at half tide. From 
this rock he had often taken Concholepas Peruvianu previously to the 
earthquake, and subsequently it retained the same position. 
The vessels occupied the same anchorage as they did before Novem- 
ber 1822; and nautical men affirmed that there was not the least dif- 
erence in the depth of the water in any part of the Bay. 
The opinion that a change had taken place in the relative level of 
land and sea, Mr. Cuming conceives originated in the accumulation 
of detritus at points where the tide flowed anterior to the earthquake, 
and on which houses, and even small streets have been since erected. 
Though these accumulations appear to have been going on between 
50. and 80 years, yet they were smail previously to the violent rains 
in June 1827, which brought down into the bay the loose granitic 
soil of the hills and the ravines. This detritus has since been thrown 
up by the tides, and formed into a firm open space exceeding 250 feet 
in breadth, on which the buildings have been erected. 
The quantity of matter thus carried into the Bay has not affected 
the anchorage, and Mr. Cuming, when dredging within two hundred 
yards of low-water mark, never found a grain of decomposed granite, 
or any kind of recent soil, but fine sandy mud, well stocked with se- 
veral species of shells of mature growth. 
Both to the northward and southward of Valparaiso, where the 
coast is open, namely, at Lagunilla, Vina del Mar, Con-Con, and 
Quintero, the sea has thrown up high banks of sand, many feet above 
the ievel of the land behind them, and reaching inland from 1000 to 
2000 feet, and at Quintero to a much greater extent. At this place 
the sand contains beds of shells “in a semi-fossil state.”” Mr. Cuming 
visited these localities previously to the earthquake, and often subse- 
quently, but never saw a shell beyond the range of high water, except 
those in the state above mentioned, and the owners declared that no 
change had taken place. 
Mr. Cuming also states that about 70 years since, he believes at 
the same time that Conception was visited by an earthquake, Valpa- 
raiso was also visited. The sea retired to a very great distance, and 
the reflux was so violent that it destroyed all the houses, carrying the 
boats and canoes to the church of San Francisco, which is about a 
pool of a mile on a gradual ascent from where the tide usually 
ows. 
A paper on the effects of the Earthquake-waves on the Coasts of 
the Pacific, by Woodbine Parish, Esq., Sec. G.S., was afterwards read, 
and will be inserted at length in our next number. 
