07 



nearly so, would entirely change in the interim. Continents are 

 changing their physical aspects and configurations — emerged and 

 submerged from the level of the ocean, and moving in masses, 

 unobserved by the millions of animated beings who have their 

 existence on them. Generation after generation disappears while 

 others are taking their places, and so gradually and imperceptibly 

 are these effected, that without reflecting a little, and comparing 

 the past with the present, we almost look at things as if they 

 had been always in the same state. So familiar and reconciled 

 we become to the altered condition, that the past is soon forgotten, 

 and man, who is linked to these renovating laws of nature, too 

 often forgets his final destiny. 



That the dry land does not possess that fixity of position, or 

 that it is not a solid and immovable mass attached to a solid 

 globe, as formerly supposed, is now well known ; and the earth- 

 quakes of South America abundantly testify that the surface is 

 a flexible crystalline compound floating on some more dense 

 fluid, and subject to perpetual movements. There have been very 

 opposite opinions entertained respecting the effects of the earth- 

 quakes on the coast of Chili. Some maintain that the coast 

 was permanently raised at various points during the earthquakes 

 of 1822-34-35, &c. ; others oppose such statements by very 

 circumstantial evidence ; yet both parties agree that the coast is 

 at present at a higher relative position at various points than it 

 was formerly. That such a disparity should occur in observa- 

 tions made by parties who were living on the spot is somewhat 

 singular, and shows how cautious we should be in drawing con- 

 clusions on observations made by a hasty survey. The cause cf 

 the above conflicting opinions is simply this : the whole western 

 coast is gradually rising, from Terra del Fuego to central America, 

 and so insensible is the action that it is effected unobserved, until 

 an earthquake draws attention to the changes, when the whole 

 is immediately attributed to that phenomenon by those who 

 may not have attended to the exact height of the sea previous to 

 the shock. That the earthquakes do occasionally cause undula- 

 tions in the coast there can be no doubt, but they are compara- 

 tively insignificant to the great changes effected by the silent 

 operations of nature, The electro-magnetic tension is sometimes 

 so great in the Chilian range as to cause immense transverse 



f 2 



