240 Onthe Reality of the Rise of the Coast of Chile. 
Mrs. Graham is inserted in our Transactions. J am deeply sensible 
of the honor that lady conferred on the Society by her obliging com- 
pliance with the request which elicited her narrative, and it is only 
the importance of its contents which could induce me to subject them 
to the test of rigid examination. 
According to this account, “it appeared, on the morning after the 
Earthquake, that the whole line of coast, from north to south, to the 
distance of above 100 miles, had been raised above its former lev- 
el.” But by what standard was the former level ascertained ? Who, 
on the morrow of so fearful a catastrophe, could command sufficient 
leisure and calmness to determine and compute a series of changes, 
which extended 100 miles in length, and embraced (according to a 
statement in the Journal of Science), an estimated area of 100,000 
square miles? How could a range of country so extensive be sur- 
veyed while the ground was still rocking, which it continued to do 
on that day, and for several successive months? What was the av- 
erage number of observations per square mile? Who made, check- 
ed, and registered them? By what means did the surveyors acquaint 
themselves with what had been the levels and contour before the ca- 
tastrophe took place, by which, as we are told, all the landmarks 
were removed, and the soundings at sea completely changed? 
Mrs. Graham states, that by the dislodgement of snow from the 
mountains, and the consequent swellings of the rivers and lakes, 
much detritus was brought from the coast; and further, that sand 
and mud were brought up through the cracks to the surface. Amid 
so many agents, it — not be easy to assign to each its share in 
the general result. 
The fishes lay dead on the shore, may prove only that there had 
been astorm. In her published travels, Mrs. Graham represents 
them as lying on the beach, which may very well have been thrown 
up, as the Chesil bank has been, by a violent sea. Some muscles, 
oysters, &c. still adhered, she says, to the rocks on which they 
grew; but we know not the nature or dimensions of these rocks, 
whether fixed or drifted. The occurrence of a shelly beach above 
the actual sea-level is an observation which must not be lost sight of- 
I propose to speak of it hereafter: in the mean time be it recollected, 
that these beaches are said to occur along the shore at various 
heights, along the summit of the highest hills, and even among the 
Andes. 
