subsequently to 1817, and of this rise only a part can be attributed to the
earthquake of 1822, the remainder having been insensible and apparently
still, in 1834, in progress. At Chiloe the elevation has been gradual, and
about four feet during four years. At Coquimbo, also, it has been gradual,
and in the course of 150 years has amounted to several feet. The sudden
small upheavals, accompanied by earthquakes, as in 1822 at Valparaiso, in
1835 at Concepcion, and in 1837 in the Chonos Archipelago, are familiar to
most geologists, but the gradual rising of the coast of Chile has been
hardly noticed; it is, however, very important, as connecting together
these two orders of events.

The rise of Lima, having been eighty-five feet within the period of man, is
the more surprising if we refer to the eastern coast of the continent, for
at Port S. Julian, in Patagonia, there is good evidence (as we shall
hereafter see) that when the land stood ninety feet lower, the
Macrauchenia, a mammiferous beast, was alive; and at Bahia Blanca, when it
stood only a few feet lower than it now does, many gigantic quadrupeds
ranged over the adjoining country. But the coast of Patagonia is some way
distant from the Cordillera, and the movement at Bahia Blanca is perhaps
noways connected with this great range, but rather with the tertiary
volcanic rocks of Banda Oriental, and therefore the elevation at these
places may have been infinitely slower than on the coast of Peru. All such
speculations, however, must be vague, for as we know with certainty that
the elevation of the whole coast of Patagonia has been interrupted by many
and long pauses, who will pretend to say that, in such cases, many and long
periods of subsidence may not also have been intercalated?

In many parts of the coast of Chile and Peru there are marks of the action
of the sea at successive heights on the land, showing that the elevation
has been interrupted by periods of comparative rest in the upward movement,