116 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



deified heroes, toiling to clear the upper provinces of lakes and 

 marshes, the sea, particularly between the main coast and 

 Formosa, by many geographical indications, supports the local 

 tradition of submersions; such as Mauri Gasima, and other 

 islands shown by the shoals, at the still remaining Piscadore 

 and Bashee islets ; and the tale, notwithstanding a due allow- 

 ance for the expert impostorship of the natives, seems con- 

 firmed, by the fishermen's dragnets occasionally bringing to the 

 surface a curiously colored porcelain, which the art, as now 

 understood in the Celestial Empire, is unable to produce. The 

 continent is separated from Formosa by a sea, we believe, always 

 in soundings, the shores being bordered with a broad belt of sand, 

 swamp, or sunken rock, generally indications of progressive 

 denudations ; and both coasts are not unfrequently visited by 

 calamitous overflowings. Since these lines were first written, 

 (1S45), if the foreign news may be credited, an event of this kind 

 has again taken place on the maritime provinces and the Yellow 

 Sea, the waters rising in the Gulf of Pechelee, to the destruction 

 of several hundred thousand human lives, innumerable cattle, 

 the loss of all the houses and provisions, and the total ruin of 

 above sixteen millions of the population, who were driven to 

 seek shelter and food in the upland provinces. Even admit- 

 ting probable exaggeration in the report, it is an event far sur- 

 passing the traditional deluges of Greece, or any other 

 recorded in profane history. It is an occurrence that may 

 boldly be claimed as a proof of continued depression of the 

 southern and eastern shores of Asia, and the oscillations pro- 

 duced on the sea by submarine disturbance, which then, like a 

 great tide wave, passes upon the land far above its usual 

 limit. 



In Japan, volcanic convulsions have been unremitting, from 

 periods anterior to the most ancient records of the nation ; for 

 to them alone can be ascribed the repeated discoveries, at great 

 depths, of jewels and manufactured objects, totally distinct 

 from the present and noticed by all the native literati as more 



