Page:The fairy tales of science.djvu/347

 coast continued far under the water, and that accordingly the bottom of the sea must have sunk as well as the shore.

During the same earthquake, many houses in the streets of the town of Terra Nova, in Calabria, were raised above their usual level, others sank down in the ground. Near the town was a circular tower of solid masonry; part of this tower remained undestroyed, but one side of it was lifted up by the action of the earthquake much above the other, the foundations of the upraised portion being laid bare to the view; though, strange to say, the divided walls were found to adhere throughout as firmly to each other, and to fit as closely, as if they had been so constructed on purpose, and cemented together from the beginning.

Towards the close of last century a remarkable subsidence took place in North America, just above the falls of the Columbia River. In 1807, American travellers found here a forest of pines under water, standing erect in the body of the river.

The most extensive elevation of land by earthquake is that which took place in 1822, on the coast of Chili, South America, in which an area of about 100,000 square miles, was raised three, four, six, and seven feet above the former level.

In 1819, a great subsidence of land took place at the mouth of the river Indus, in Hindostan, the bed of the river sinking eighteen feet; the sea rushing into the mouth of the Indus, in a few hours