ABOUT VOLCANOS AND EARTHQUAKES. 7 



near Naples, was raised twenty feet above its former 

 level, and remains so permanently upheaved to this day. 

 And I could mention innumerable other instances of the 

 same kind.'"* 



(8.) This, then, is the manner in which the earthquake 

 does its work ; and it is always at work. Somewhere or 

 other in the world, there is perhaps not a day, certainly 

 not a month, without an earthquake. In those districts 

 of South and Central America, where the great chain of 

 volcanic cones is situated- Chimborazo, Cotopaxi, and 

 a long list with names unmentionable, or at least unpro- 

 nounceable the inhabitants no more think of counting 

 earthquake shocks than we do of counting showers of 

 rain. Indeed, in some places along that coast, a shower 

 is a greater rarity. Even in our own island, near Perth, 

 a year seldom passes without a shock, happily, within 

 the records of history, never powerful enough to do any 

 mischief. 



(9.) It is not everywhere that this process goes on by 

 fits and starts. For instance, the northern gulfs, and 

 borders of the Baltic Sea, are steadily shallowing: and 

 the whole mass of Scandinavia, including Norway, 

 Sweden, and Lapland, is rising out of the sea at the 

 average rate of about two feet per century. But as this 

 fact (which is perfectly well established by reference to 

 ancient high and low water-marks) is not so evidently 

 connected with the action of earthquakes, I shall not 

 further refer to it just now. All that I want to show is, 



* Not that earthquakes always raise the soil; there are plenty 

 of instances of subsidence, etc. 



