THE VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE 329 



rocks, ten feet above high-water mark: the inhabitants had 

 formerly dived at lower-water spring-tides for these shells. 

 The elevation of this province is particularly interesting, 

 from its having been the theatre of several other violent 

 earthquakes, and from the vast numbers of sea-shells scat- 

 tered over the land, up to a height of certainly 600, and I 

 believe, of 1000 feet. At Valparaiso, as I have remarked, 

 similar shells are found at the height of 1300 feet : it is hardly 

 possible to doubt that this great elevation has been effected 

 by successive small uprisings, such as that which accompa- 

 nied or caused the earthquake of this year, and likewise by 

 an insensibly slow rise, which is certainly in progress on 

 some parts of this coast. 



The island of Juan Fernandez, 360 miles to the N.E., was, 

 at the time of the great shock of the 20th, violently shaken, 

 so that the trees beat against each other, and a volcano burst 

 forth under water close to the shore : these facts are remark- 

 able because this island, during the earthquake of 1751, was 

 then also affected more violently than other places at an equal 

 distance from Concepcion, and this seems to show some sub- 

 terranean connection between these two points. Chiloe, about 

 340 miles southward of Concepcion, appears to have been 

 shaken more strongly than the intermediate district of Val- 

 divia, where the volcano of Villarica was noways affected, 

 whilst in the Cordillera in front of Chiloe, two of the vol- 

 canos burst -forth at the same instant in violent action. These 

 two volcanos, and some neighbouring ones, continued for a 

 long time in eruption, and ten months afterwards were 

 again influenced by an earthquake at Concepcion. Some 

 men, cutting Wood near the base of one of these volcanos, 

 did not perceive the shock of the 20th, although the whole 

 surrounding Province was then trembling; here we have an 

 eruption relieving and taking the place of an earthquake, 

 as would have happened at Concepcion, according to the 

 belief of the lower orders, if the volcano at Antuco had not 

 been closed by witchcraft. Two years and three-quarters 

 afterwards, Valdivia and Chiloe were again shaken, more 

 violently than on the 20th, and an island in the Chonos 

 Archipelago was permanently elevated more than eight feet. 

 It will give a better idea of the scale of these phenomena, if 



