May, 1835. 



PARALLEL TERRACES. 



423 



earthquakes. I think, however, this excess of panic may be 

 partly attributed to a want of habit in governing their fears ; 

 the usual restraint of shame being here absent. Indeed, the 

 natives do not like to see a person indifferent. I heard of two 

 Englishmen who, sleeping in the open air, during a smart 

 shock, knowing there was no danger, did not rise. The 

 natives cried out indignantly, " Look at those heretics, they 

 will not even get out of their beds ! 



I spent two or three days in examining the step-formed 

 terraces of shingle first described by Captain Basil Hall, in his 

 work, so full of spirited descriptions, on the west coast of 

 America. Mr. Lyell concluded from the account, that they 

 must have been formed by the sea during the gradual rising 

 of the land. Such is the case : on some of the steps which 

 sweep round from within the valley, so as to front the coast, 

 shells of existing species both lie on the surface, and are 

 embedded in a soft calcareous stone. This bed of the most 

 modern tertiary epoch passes downward into another, con- 

 taining some living species associated with others now lost. 

 Amongst the latter may be mentioned shells of an enormous 

 perna and an oyster, and the teeth of a gigantic shark, closely 

 allied to, or identical with the Carcharias Megalodcn of ancient 

 Europe ; the bones of which, or of some cetaceous animal, 

 are also present, in a silicified state, in great numbers. At 

 Guasco, the phenomenon of the parallel terraces is very 

 strikingly seen: no less than seven perfectly level, but 

 unequally broad plains, ascending by steps, occur on one or 

 both sides the valley. So remarkable is the contrast of the 

 successive horizontal lines, corresponding on each side, with 

 the irregular outline of the surrounding mountains, that it 

 attracts the attention of even those who feel no interest re- 

 garding the causes, which have modelled the surface of the 

 land. The origin of the terraces of Coquimbo is precisely 

 the same, according to my view, with that of the plains of 

 Patagonia ; the only difference is that the plains are rather 

 broader than the terraces, and that they front the Atlantic 

 ocean instead of a valley, — which valley, however, was for- 



