PARALLEL llOADS. 



11 



bottom of the sea, with great violence. If this 

 be admitted, it has been shown, I think, conclu- 

 sively,* that a wave, greater or less in magnitude, 

 according to the size and velocity of the subma- 

 rine elevation, must inevitably be produced : and 

 it requires no great effort of the imagination to 

 eoJiceive one sufficiently large to submerge the 

 whole of this coast : at least those who have ex- 

 amined the Alps, the Andes, or any other lofty 

 chain, and have seen the solid strata of rock now 

 elevated on their edges, to the height of many 

 thousand feet in the air, although bearing indubi- 

 table marks of having once been in a horizontal 

 position, and below the sea, will discover nothing 

 extravagant in this supposition. 



We could not visit any of the mines at Coquim- 

 bo, as they lay at too great a distance from the 

 coast ; but we examined several of the gold mills, 

 where the process is carried on entirely by amal- 

 gamation. 



* See a paper on the Revolutions of the Earth's Sur- 

 face, by Sir James Hall^ in Vol. VII. of the Edinburgh 

 Philosophical Transactions, 



