On the Reality of the Rise of the Coast of Chile. 241 
Neither in the paper of Mrs. Graham, nor in the anonymous ac- 
count, published about the same time in the Journal of Science, can 
I find any paragraph to justify the position (which from the seductive 
character of the work* in which it appears, may, if not now assailed, 
soon be deemed unassailable), that a district in Chile, one thousand 
miles in area, “ was uplifted to the average height of a foot or more, 
and the cubic contents of the granitic mass added in a few hours to 
the land.” By what means we get the average I do not know. 
Mrs. Graham says, the alteration of level at Valparaiso, was about 
three feet ; at Quintero, about four feet; but the granitic mass !— 
has the geological surface of Chile been sufficiently examined to as- 
sure us that granite extends over one hundred thousand square miles? 
In the well-known work of Molini, a Jesuit who passed a greater 
part of his life in Chile, and wrote a natural history of that country, 
I find no ground for supposing that in any Earthquakes which took 
place there, from the time the Spaniards first landed on its shores to 
the days of his publication, any similar phenomena had been noticed. 
Moreover, the statement of Mrs. Graham, and the writer before al- 
luded to, respecting the elevation of land which occurred during the 
Earthquake of 1822, has not been confirmed by Capt. King, nor by 
any naval officer or naturalist who has since visited that region, al- 
though many have visited it who had heard the circumstance, and 
who would willingly have corroborated it if they could. But they 
Saw no traces of any such an event; and the natives with whom they 
conversed neither recollected nor could be induced ‘to believe it. 
The 16th number of the Mercurio Chileno, a scientific Journal, 
contains an account of this Earthquake, by Don Camilo Enriquez, 
which I have not been able to procure. A later number refers to 
this account, and to another published in the Abeja Argentina, a 
work of considerable reputation, which, by the kindness of Mr. 
Woodbine Parish, I have been enabled to consult. The account 
there given of the Earthquake of 1822, is strongly recommended to 
the reader, “as a sensible, straight-forward description of what actu- 
ally took place, without the high coloring in which ignorance, and 
terror, and exaggeration, are apt to indulge.” 
No notice is here taken of the permanent elevation of the land, 
and the account concludes thus :— 
+ Lyewt, Vol. I. p. 473. 
Vol. XX VIII.—No. 2. 31 
