154 



EAETHQUAKE IN CHILI. 



[Ch. XXX. 



The various opinions which have been offered by Michell 

 and later writers, respecting the remote causes of earthquake 

 shocks in the interior of the earth, will 



more 



XXXIII 



Chili, 1751. 



Mav 



ancient town of Con- 



ception, otherwise called Penco, was totally destroyed by an 

 earthquake, and the sea rolled over it. (See plan of the 

 bay, fig. 104, p. 92.) The ancient port was rendered entirely 

 useless, tod the inhabitants built another town about 10 

 miles from the sea-coast, in order to be bevonrl thp ve^^oh ^t 



similar inundations. 



same time 



settled on the sea-shore of Juan Fernandez was almost entirely 

 overwhelmed by a wave which broke upon the shore. 



It has been already stated, that in 1835, or 84 years after 

 the destruction of Penco, the same coast was overwhelmed 

 by a similar flood from the sea during an earthquake ; and 

 it is also known that 21 years before (or in 1730), a like 

 wave rolled over these fated shores, in which many of the 

 inhabitants perished. A series of similar catastrophes has 

 also been tracked back as far as the year 1590,^ beyond 

 which we have no memorials save those of oral tradition. 



Molina, who has recorded tllA Cnstnms nnrl l<=.fY>anrla nf flna 



'had among them a 



aborigines, tells us, that the Araucanian Indians, a tribe 

 inhabiting the country between the Andes and the Pacific, 

 including the part now called Chili, 

 tradition of a great deluge, in which only a few persons were 

 saved, who took refuge upon a high mountain called Thegtheg, 

 "the thundering," which had three points.' Whenever a 



violent earthquake occurs, these people fly for safety to the 

 mountains. 



, assigning as a reason, that they are fearful, 

 after the shock, that the sea will again return and deluge 

 the world. t 



^Notwithstanding the tendency of writers in his day to 

 refer all traditionary inundations to one remote period, 

 Molina remarks that this flood of the Araucanians 'was 

 probably very different from that of 



Noah.' We have, 



mean 



* See Father Acosta's work ; and Sir ings, vol. ii. p. 215. 



Woodbine Parish, GeoL Soc. Proceed- 



t Molina, Hist, of Chili, vol. ii. 



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