The most remarkable effect of this earthquake was the permanent
elevation of the land; it would probably be far more correct to
speak of it as the cause. There can be no doubt that the land round
the Bay of Concepcion was upraised two or three feet; but it
deserves notice, that owing to the wave having obliterated the old
lines of tidal action on the sloping sandy shores, I could discover
no evidence of this fact, except in the united testimony of the
inhabitants, that one little rocky shoal, now exposed, was formerly
covered with water. At the island of S. Maria (about thirty miles
distant) the elevation was greater; on one part, Captain Fitz Roy
found beds of putrid mussel-shells STILL ADHERING TO THE 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 scattered 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
accompanied 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.
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