1843.] Memoir on Indian Earthquakes. 1055* 



sward, and emitting gas in bubbles, occur in great profusion along the 

 coast. It is an interesting circumstance recorded by Dr. McClelland, 

 that from the summit of one of the largest of these mud volcanoes, 

 called Nayadong, vapour and flame were seen by the inhabitants of 

 Kyook Phoo to issue to the height of several hundred feet above the 

 summit, during the principal shock of the Earthquake of the 26th 

 August 1833. " The phenomenon," Dr. McClelland remarks, "may 

 have been occasioned by the concussion of the Earthquake bursting 

 open some new fissure, from which a transitory stream of inflammable 

 gas, such as supplies the celebrated burning fountain of Chittagong, 

 may have issued." 



The mud volcanoes here referred to are precisely similar in their 

 character to those previously described as occurring throughout the 

 coasts of Scinde and Mukran, and farther, to those which have been 

 found on the coasts of Chili and Calabria, two of the most remarkable 

 of modern Earthquake tracts. 



Advancing still farther northward, we arrive at the Chittagong coast, 

 where evidences of extensive alterations of level due to volcanic action 

 are no less remarkable. An interesting proof of these is given in the 

 " Mohit," or Ocean, a Turkish work on navigation in the Indian seas, 

 written in 1554, and translated by Von Purgstall, (Jour. As. Soc. Vol. 

 V. p. 466). In this work the author, Sidi, giving detailed instructions 

 for the voyage from Diu to Shattigam, or Bengal, warns navigators 

 with much earnestness against the dangers in their course among the 

 islands on the coast of Chittagong. To the sailing instructions of 

 Sidi, Mr. James Prinsep appends the following note : " There are now no 

 islands seaward of the Chittagong coast to which the sailing directions 

 of Sidi will apply : but Lieut. Lloyd of the Indian Navy, who has sur- 

 veyed the line, informs us, that there is a long shoal, called 'The 

 Patch,' parallel with the coast, which is nearly dry at low water, and 

 may have formed the islands of Zengilia (referred to by Sidi,) three 

 centuries ago, for there have evidently been great changes in those parts 

 even within the memory of our own navigators." 



I am not aware whether the coast of Chittagong generally presents 

 those marked indications of active volcanic forces so strikingly deve- 

 loped throughout that of Arracan, but that such forces do exist beneath 

 it, is proved by the remarkable hot spring about twenty miles to the 

 northward of the town of Chittagong, the gaseous exhalations from 

 which are very considerable, and are frequently in a state of ignition. 

 I have been unable, however, to find any detailed account of the physi- 

 cal structure of this district, and its general character is accordingly 

 unknown to me. 



During the year 1843, volcanic action on the Arracan coast was dis- 

 played in a rare and interesting manner, by the formation of a new 

 island, but as details of this phenomenon, more ample than any yet 

 published, are to be expected, I defer any remarks upon it to a future 

 opportunity. During the same year, shocks of Earthquake were also 



