278 Recent Elevatory Movements ■, part n. 



and in the course of 150 years lias amounted to several 

 feet. The sudden small upheavals, accompanied by 

 earthquakes, as in 1822 at Valparaiso, in 1835 at Con-. 

 cepcion. and in 1837 in the Chonos Archipelago, are 

 familiar to most geologists, but the gradual rising of 

 the coast of Chile has been hardly noticed ; it is, how- 

 ever, very important, as connecting together these two 

 orders of events. 



The rise of Lima, having been eighty-five feet within 

 the period of man, is the more surprising if we refer to 

 the eastern coast of the continent, for at Port S. Julian, 

 in Patagonia, there is good evidence (as we shall here- 

 after see) that when the land stood ninety feet lower, 

 the Macrauchenia, a mammiferous beast, was alive ; 

 and at Bahia Blanca, when it steed only a few feet 

 lower than it now does, many gigantic quadrupeds 

 ranged over the adjoining country. But the coast of 

 Patagonia is some way distant from the Cordillera, aud 

 the movement at Bahia Blanca is perhaps no ways 

 connected with this great range, but rather with the 

 tertiary volcanic rocks of Banda Oriental, and therefore 

 the elevation at these places may have been infinitely 

 slower than on the coast of Peru. All such speculations, 

 however, must be vague, for as we know with certainty 

 that the elevation of the whole coast of Patagonia has 

 been interrupted by many and long pauses, who will 

 pretend to say that, in such cases, many and long periods 

 of subsidence may not also have been intercalated ? 



In many parts of the coast of Chile and Peru there 

 are marks of the action of the sea at successive heights 

 on the land, showing- that the elevation has been inter- 

 rupted by periods of comparative rest in the upward 

 movement, and of denudation in the action of the sea. 

 These are plainest at Chiloe, where, in a height of about 

 500 feet, there are three escarpments, — at Coquimbo, 



