1052* Memoir on Indian Earthquakes. [No. 144. 



" The old man, above-mentioned, was not at Chedooba, but at Ava 

 when the event happened: he had gone thither that year, and experi- 

 enced at that place the violent Earthquake which accompanied the 

 elevation. From other natives of great age I received the information 

 not direct, but traditionally, from their parents. 



" The Earthquake was very violent, the sea washed to and fro several 

 times with great fury, and then retired from the ground, leaving an 

 immense quantity of fish : the feasting on which is a favourite story 

 throughout the island ; no lives were lost, no rents in the earth occur- 

 red, nor fire from the volcanoes of the island. 



" The above is not the only event of the sort traditionally known, 

 as another occurred a century previous to it, and these elevations are 

 considered periodical by the inhabitants, occurring every hundred years, 

 and the next is even expected within the course of a few years, and 

 would excite but little surprise. 



" Traces of a third beach line were several times thought to be found 

 before this information was given : but on the western coast, about 

 half way down, an evidence of its truth was afforded by a remarkable 

 column, or rock, about 40 feet high, standing on the beach, which 

 shewed the remains of a second line of rock. Oysters adhering to it 

 at an equal elevation of 13 feet above the first, as it was again above 

 the one which on all the rocks of the western coast distinctly points 

 out the limit of the present high water. On Flat Island were subse- 

 quently found these distinct beaches, and the corals found on the dif- 

 ferent extents of the island, clearly proclaimed, in their relative states 

 of decomposition, the difference of their periods of exposure. 



" The external and more apparent means by which these great changes 

 are effected, are, so far as yet known, I believe quite peculiar, and ex- 

 hibit features which may be valuable in assisting investigation into 

 the immediate causes of volcanic violence. 



" Every one of the mud volcanoes of Chedooba was visited and ex- 

 amined, as well as those of the neighbouring islands south of it, and on 

 none, with strictest search could be found any traces of direct fire, or 

 of those peculiar formations produced by that agent. Gas alone 

 seems to be the one occasioning these strange exceptions to the gene- 

 ral character of volcanoes. It is no doubt inflammable gas, and the 

 light given by some of them has been so great, as to enable a book to 

 be read by it at a distance of nine miles, as was credibly related to me 

 as having occurred at the last eruption of the large volcano of Meu- 

 brung, the largest on the island. That heat is present in the more 

 recent ones, I found myself to be the case, in one examined on Ramree, 

 where the mud brought up on a bamboo from 1 7 feet in depth, shewed 

 a temperature of 92° 20' above that of the atmosphere. But a white 

 stone-like chalk, found on all the large volcanoes, which was considered 

 to be the common greenish sandstone discoloured by heat, was the only 

 substance found which exhibited a trace of intense heat, and in this 

 case the abstraction of colour above was effected without the least 



