SOME FAMOUS EARTHQUAKES 



proofs that this part of the continent of South America 

 has been elevated near the coast at least from four to 

 five hundred feet, and in some parts from one thou- 

 sand to thirteen hundred feet, since the epoch of living 

 shells."" Darwin finds his evidence in the raised beaches 

 near the coast on which these shells abound. That this 

 uplift has been going on by small and sudden move- 

 ments, from a foot to ten feet at each shock, for more 

 than two centuries is attested by good evidence. The 

 coast in many places is proven to be from twenty to 

 thirty feet higher to-day than it was in the middle of 

 the seventeenth century. Sir Charles Lyell, in his Prin- 

 ciples of Geology ) gives a most interesting account of the 

 sudden upheaval of a portion of a mountain range, with 

 the accompaniment of a great earthquake, near Welling- 

 ton, in New Zealand, in January, 1855. Both the North 

 and South Islands of that colony have been affected by 

 upliftings during the nineteenth century, and these move- 

 ments have been attended by powerful and far-reaching 

 earthquakes. The changes wrought by these movements 

 on the shores and farther inland as well have been re- 

 markable during the last hundred years. 



Another example of the same kind of activity is seen in 

 the occasional rise of islands from the sea ; but to this we 

 shall refer again, and for the present we may return to the 

 Calabrian earthquake, which presented many curious and 

 many characteristic features. During the earthquake the 

 surface of the country heaved in great undulations, which 

 were productive of a feeling of sea-sickness, and which, 

 according to some observers, made the clouds appear to 



