Page:A Treatise on Geology, volume 2.djvu/256

 242 a port a little south of Talcahuano, the land rose about 1 foot and a half. In the small island of Santa Maria, the rise was estimated by Captain Fitzroy at 8, 9, and 1 feet! At Nuevo Bilbao, 70 leagues north of Concepçion, the earthquake was violent, but there is no permanent elevation of the land. Throughout the entire provinces of Canquenes and Concepçion, the crust of the earth has been rent and shattered in every direction. An hundred miles from the coast vessels experienced the shock. The island of Juan Fernandez was included in the area of the submarine disturbance, which below the land reached northward as far as Coquimbo.

It is remarkable that Acosta speaks of very similar effects of waves and violent movements in the same range of coast, in the 16th century; and other instances have been collected by Mr. Woodbine Parish.

Though, for reasons before stated, we cannot expect to find cases of sudden depression in volcanic regions so frequent or extensive as those of elevation, enough is known to assure us that in and beyond these regions, earthquakes have very often caused subsidence of land. We read, that in the year 541 Pompeiopolis was half swallowed up in an earthquake; that in 867 Mount Acraus fell into the sea; that in 1112, the city of Liege was flooded by the Meuse, and that of Rotemburg on the Neckar was ruined. In 1186, a city on the Adriatic shore is described as sinking into the sea; in 1596 the sea covered many towns in Japan; in 1638 St, Euphemia became a lake; and in 1602 Port Royal is commonly believed to have sunk. In 1755, the great earthquake caused a new quay at Lisbon to subside, and its place was occupied by water 100 fathoms deep, and other similar cases of engulphment occurred on the Portuguese and African shores. In 1819, extensive subsidence occurred with the submersion of a town and large tracts of country, at the mouth of the Indus, and in the same vicinity rose a compensating elevation, called "the Ullah Bund."