A GREAT SEA-WAVE. 225 



In somewhat less than three hours after the occur- 

 rence of the earthquake, the ocean-wave inundated the 

 port of Coquimbo, on the Chilian seaboard, some 800 

 miles from Arica. An hour or so later it had reached 

 Constitucion, 450 miles farther south; and here for 

 some three hours the sea rose and fell with strange 

 violence. Farther south, along the shore of Chili, 

 even to the island of Chiloe, the shore-wave travelled, 

 though with continually diminishing force, owing, 

 doubtless, to the resistance which the irregularities of 

 the shore opposed to its progress. 



The northerly shore-wave seems to have been more 

 considerable ; and a moment's study of a chart of the 

 two Americas will show that this circumstance is 

 highly significant. "When we remember that the 

 principal effects of the land-shock were experienced 

 within that angle which the Peruvian Andes form 

 with the long north -and-south line of the Chilian and 

 Bolivian Andes, we see at once that had the centre of 

 the subterranean action been near the scene where the 

 most destructive effects were perceived, no sea-wave, 

 or but a small one, could have been sent toward the 

 shores of North America. The projecting shores of 

 northern Peru and Ecuador could not have failed to 

 divert the sea-wave toward the west ; and though a 

 reflected wave might have reached California, it would 

 only have been after a considerable interval of time, 

 and with dimensions much less than those of the sea- 



