PHYSICAL FEATURES OF CHILI. 421 



containing lignite, have only an average height of 2,000 feet, the loftiest summit 

 rising to no more than 2,824 feet. 



On the seaward slope these hills present a dreary monotonous aspect with their 

 bare flanks and round arid crests. Several bear distinct traces of terrace formations, 

 which are regarded by Darwin, Poppig, and other observers as old marine beaches 

 successively levelled by the action of the sea. Indications occur of the presence 

 of the oceanic waters some hundreds of yards above the present sea-level, caused 

 either by an upheaval of the land or a subsidence of the Pacific. Oscillations of 

 level seem to be also indicated by the shell mounds of relatively recent origin 

 covering certain terraces and consisting of species identical with those still living 

 in the neighbouring waters. 



But the successive stages noticed on the flank of the mountains at the issue of 

 the fluvial valleys are not necessarily of marine origin. Such terraces may be 

 the result of the work of erosion accomplished by the inland streams in eating 

 their way through the hilly rampart separating them from the sea. The recent 

 shell mounds also may perhaps be nothing more than kitchen-middens accumulated 

 by the coast populations. The indigenous Araucanians, Chilotes and Chonos were 

 accustomed to dig long pits on the shore and to fill them with edible shell-fish, 

 which they covered with hot stones, sods and earth, and remains of such eumntos, 

 or primitive fireplaces, occur everywhere. 



But however this be, the upheaval does not appear to have been general. In 

 one of the Chonos Islands Philibert Germain would even appear to have discovered 

 evidences of the opposite movement of subsidence, indicated by a partly-submerged 

 wooded shore. 



Another question much discussed by geologists concerns the sudden abrupt 

 changes of level said to have taken place on this part of the Chilian seaboard. 

 The most violent earthquakes recorded in Chili were those of the years 1822, 

 1835 and 1837 along the shores of Conception Bay, under the same latitude as the 

 Chilian and Antuco volcanoes. According to the unanimous statement of the 

 inhabitants reported by Maria Graham, the shock of 1822 resulted in a general 

 upheaval of the whole of the Valparaiso coast, or a subsidence of the sea for a 

 space of about GO miles. In 1835 Fitzroy and Darwin found evidence of such a 

 change in Conception Bay, where the difference of level was as much as 5 feet 

 at the town itself, while the neighbouring island of Santa Maria would appear to 

 have been tilted up 8 or 9 feet at its southern, and 10 at its northern extremity. 

 Altogether the upward thrust would have raised above the surface a mass of land 

 equal in weight to about 363,000,000 pyramids such as that of Cheops, largest of 

 the great monuments at Gizeh. But the old level was gradually re-established, 

 and in four months all trace of the sudden rise had disappeared. 



Chiloe and Neighbouring Archipelagoes. 



Beyond the extreme promontory at Reloncavi Bay, the seaboard is continued 

 southwards by the island of Chiloe, formerly Chili-hue, that is, " Part of Chili.'* 



