41S BAROMETER— CHANGES OF LEVEL. Feb. 



sudden a fall, not followed by bad weather, may have been 

 connected with the cause of the earthquake ; but some doubt 

 hangs over these observations. The barometers on board the 

 Beagle, at that time in Valdivia, did not indicate any change. 

 Still, at so great a distance, it does not follow that the mercury 

 should move similarly ; and (notwithstanding doubts excited 

 by persons at Concepcion who had frequently looked at Cap- 

 tain Delano's barometer,) I am hardly inclined to disbelieve the 

 extract from his register which he gave me. 



In a river near Lirquen, a woman was washing clothes at the 

 time of the great shock. The water rose instantaneously, from 

 her feet half way up her legs ; and then subsided gradually to 

 its usual level. It became very muddy at the same time. On 

 the sea-beach the water swelled up to high-water mark, at the 

 time of the shock, without having previously retired. It then 

 began to retire, and continued falling about half an hour, before 

 a great wave was seen approaching. 



For some days after the devastation the sea did not rise to 

 its usual marks, by four or five feet vertically. Some thought 

 the land had been elevated, but the common and prevailing 

 idea was, that the sea had retired. This alteration gradually 

 diminished, till, in the middle of April, there was a difference 

 of only two feet betv/een the existing, and former high-water 

 marks. The proof that the land had been raised exists in the 

 fact, that the island of Santa Maria was upheaved some feet 

 more than other places. 



In going through the narrow passage which separates 

 Quiriquina from Tumbes, the great waves had swept the steep 

 shores to a height of thirty feet (vertically) above high- water 

 mark ; but this elevation was attained, in all probability, only 

 at the sides of the passage, where the water met with more 

 obstruction, and therefore washed up higher. That passage 

 is nearly one mile in width, and has ten fathoms water in the 

 middle ; but the rocks on the western side diminish its navi- 

 gable width to half a mile. 



Wherever the invading waves found low land, the destruction 

 was great, from those lands being in general well cultivated, and 



