to a few feet, and banks of sea-shells were laid dry above high-water 

 mark. But these statements, given on the authority of Mrs. Gra- 

 ham's personal observation, and confirmed by others to which I shall 

 presently allude, have been met by a direct counter-statement so 

 circumstantial and explicit as to deserve the fullest consideration. 

 Mr. Cuming, well known to you by his numerous researches in 

 conchology, declares that being at Valparaiso before and during the 

 earthquake of 1822, and residing there constantly until 1827, he 

 could never detect any proofs of the rise of the land, although his 

 pursuit of conchology and natural history in general caused him to 

 visit frequently the rocks and inlets with which the northern and 

 southern parts of the bay abound. These rocks were covered with 

 Fuci, Patellae, Chitons, Balani, &c., yet he never perceived the least 

 difference in their appearance from the date of his arrival to his 

 finally quitting Valparaiso, nor observed any trace of them except 

 in situations covered by the tide. He also remarked that the wa- 

 ter at spring tides rose after the earthquake to the same point on a 

 wall near his house which it had reached before the shocks. He 

 imagines that the idea that a change had taken place in the relative 

 level of land and sea originated in the gain of land opposite Valpa- 

 raiso, occasioned by the accumulation of detritus at points where 

 the tide had flowed previously to the earthquake. Mr. Cuming 

 first heard of the notion of the land having been elevated at Valpa- 

 raiso when Mrs. Graham's paper read to the Geological Society in 

 1824 was talked of at Valparaiso. Neither he nor his friends 

 were then able to subscribe to the opinion expressed in that com- 

 munication. 



On the other hand, Lieut. Freyer, R.N., in a letter read to you 

 during the last session, observes, that being at Valparaiso after the 

 earthquake of 1822, he saw a shelly beach to the east of the town, 

 above the reach of the tides ; and rocks, which was pointed out to him 

 as being less under water than it had been before the convulsion^ 

 Dr.Meyen also, a Prussian traveller, who visited Valparaiso in 1831, 

 says he examined the coast there and found appearances in corro- 

 boration of Mrs. Graham's statements. I may also repeat what I 

 have elsewhere recorded, that some years after the event I applied 

 to Mr. Cruckshanks, an English botanist, who resided in Chili at the 

 time of the earthquake, whether he had seen any signs of the alleged 

 change of level. He said that he examined the coast at Quintero 

 after the shocks, and satisfied himself that it had been uplifted seve- 

 ral feet, and that the fishermen told him that the ocean had gone 

 down and was lower than before, in confirmation of which they 

 pointed to some rocks of greenstone at Quintero, a few hundred 

 yards from the beach, which were always under water previously 

 to the great shock of 1822, but were afterwards uncovered when 

 the tide was at half ebb. 



Without pretending that I can reconcile this contradictory evi- 

 dence, I may suggest that some discordance in the accounts may 

 have arisen from a want of uniformity in the movement at diflferent 

 places, and still more from a subsequent sinking down of some 



