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PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



vibration of the earth was changed to a rolling motion, like that of a ship at sea. Though 

 there was not a breath of air, yet the trees were so agitated, that their topmost branches 

 seemed on the point of touching the ground. The lowing of the frighted cattle, and the 

 screaming of the sea-fowl, never ceased till the morning ; while the rational witnesses of 

 this awful convulsion of nature experienced, in its full extent, a sensation which only 

 those who have felt it can entirely conceive the certainty of great and sudden danger, 

 which no exertion can avert or mitigate. Though they fled from the falling house, who 

 could assure them that the next moment the ground would not open beneath their feet ? 



The shock of this earthquake was felt throughout a tract of country extending 1200 

 miles from north to south. St. Jago, Valparaiso, and some other towns were much 

 injured; but the chief peculiarity of the event was, that at Valparaiso the shore was 

 found to have been lifted up three feet above its former level ; and, on further examination, 

 it appeared that the whole coast, for above one hundred miles, had been elevated in the 

 same manner. Part of the bed of the sea was also raised, and remained bare and dry at 

 high water, with beds of oysters, muscles, and other shell-fish adhering to the rocks on 

 which they grew. The fish were all dead, and exhaled an offensive smell. Conical 

 mounds of earth, about four feet high, were thrown up in several districts, by the forcing 

 up of water mixed with sand, through funnel-shaped hollows. The whole extent of 

 country lifted up above its former level was estimated at 100,000 square miles. The 

 whole surface, from the foot of the Andes to a great distance under the sea, is supposed 

 to have been raised, so that the soundings in the harbour of Valparaiso were in conse 

 quence materially altered, the depth of water being much less than before. In the course 

 of a few hours the change of level was effected ; but the shocks continued from November 

 1822 to September 1823, and even then two days seldom passed without one being expe 

 rienced, and sometimes two or three were felt during twenty-four hours. After this 

 earthquake, Mrs. Graham observed, that besides the beach newly raised above high-water 

 mark, there were several more ancient lines of beach, one above another, consisting of 

 shingle mixed with shells, and extending along the shore in parallel lines, the uppermost 

 being fifty feet above the sea. Perhaps these may be indications of the coast having been 

 repeatedly elevated by the same means. Sir C. Lyell has introduced other particulars 

 respecting this great disturbance, gathered from the Transactions of the Geological 

 Society, confirmative of the leading phenomenon the elevation of the coast. The wreck 

 of a ship which could not be approached previously, became accessible from the land, 

 although its distance from the original shore had not altered. The water-course of a mill, 

 a mile from the sea, gained a fall of fully a foot in a hundred yards. The rise upon the 

 coast was from two to four feet, but in some inland situations it amounted to as much as 

 seven feet. 



