238. Onthe Reality of the Rise of the Coast of Chile. 
tremor felt, and a sound heard like that of vapor bursting out, sim- 
ilar to the tremor and sound which I remembered to have observed 
at each jet of fire, while standing on the cone of Vesuvius, during the 
eruption of 1818. The tremor between the shocks was shown to 
be real by the agitation of water in a glass; and during the shocks, 
water, or mercury, placed in a glass, was thrown over the edge in 
every direction. In the house where I resided, the furniture was 
all displaced, with some degree of regularity, so as to range, not par- 
allel to the walls, which fronted to the north and south, but at a giv- 
en angle diagonally. The sensations experienced on board the ships 
that lay in the harbour of Valparaiso, was as if they were moving 
very rapidly through the water, and occasionally touching the ground. 
On the first shock, on the night of the 19th of November, the sea, 
in Valparaiso harbor, rose toa great height, and then receded, so 
as to leave the small vessels, that were before afloat dry on the beach; 
it then returned again, but, as compared with the level of the land, 
not to its original level. All this is stated to have happened in @ 
quarter of an hour. 
On the morning of the 20th, all the rivers and lakes connected 
with them, in consequence of the dislodgement of snow from the 
mountains, were much swollen. In all the small valleys, the earth 
of the gardens was rent, and quantities of water and sand were for- 
ced up through the cracks to the surface. In the alluvial valley of 
Vina-a-la-Mar, the whole plain was covered with cones of earth, 
about four feet high, occasioned by the water and sand which had 
been forced up through funnel-shaped hollows beneath them; the 
whole surface being thus reduced to the consistence of quick-sand. 
At the roots of all the trees, between the surrounding earth and 
stem, large hollows were seen, into which the hand could be intro- 
duced, occasioned by the violence with which the trunks had been 
lashed to and fro. The bed of the Lake of Quintero was full of 
large cracks, and the alluvial soil on its shore, was divided so as to 
look like a sponge. The level of the lake, which, communicates 
with the sea, had apparently sunk very much. The promontory of 
Quintero consists of granite, covered by sandy soil. The granite 
on the beach which is intersected by parallel veins, from a line to an 
inch in thickness, most of which are filled with a shining matter, but 
some are only coated with it on their sides, and present hollow fiss- 
ures. After the Earthquake of the 19th, the whole rock was f 
rent by sharp recent clefts, very distinguishable from the older ones, 
