1866.] 



WILSON — ECUADOR. 



569 



limestone appeared to rest on the volcanic deposits, and it was the 

 washing away of this latter from underneath that caused the harder 

 limestone to break off in those enormous blocks. So far as the 

 author's observations yet extend, the earlier beds of the volcanic 

 material are at least contemporaneous with the Tertiary limestone ; 

 and the accumulation of these volcanic outcastings continued until 

 long after the close of the Tertiary period, but became gradually more 

 circumscribed. 



Section of Point at Chancama. 



a. Vegetable mould. 



b. Clay and sand with pottery. 



c. Water-worn gravel and clay with 



pottery. 



d. Gravel and clay with pottery. 



e. Sand and gravel. 

 /. Trash-rock. 



ff. Blue slaty rock with fragments of 

 shells. 



The second of the terraces described contains, in many places,^ 

 remains of articles of human art (broken pottery, earthen figures, 

 and fragments of gold ornaments) at various depths below the 

 surface, but in all cases below high-tide mark, from which fact it is 

 apparent that this region, during its occupation by man, stood 

 higher above the sea than it does now. But the sea gradually en- 

 croached on the land, till it attained a height of about fifteen feet 

 above its former level. That the duration of time occupied by this 

 advance and retreat of the sea must have been very great is apparent 

 when we consider that the stratified earth of the plain is simply 

 the sediment brought down by the rivers and deposited beneath the 

 margins of the sea, in some places to the depth of ten feet above the 

 surface on which the ancient cities stood. Again the land sank and 

 deposited those low flats and islands found at different places along 

 the sea-margins. The land is again gradually sinking. 



The pottery-stratum is traceable along a line of 80 miles of coast, 

 and, by partial observations, is determined to occur under corre- 

 sponding conditions for a distance of 200 miles more. 



The discovery of pottery in a formation considered by the author 

 immensely older than, the clay-beds of the coast, in the uppermost, 

 excepting one, of the terraces described, was made at Chancama, 



2q2 



