I can add nothing to the accounts already published of the elevation of the
land at Valparaiso, which accompanied the earthquake of 1822 (Dr. Meyen
"Reise um Erde" Th. 1 s. 221, found in 1831 seaweed and other bodies still
adhering to some rocks which during the shock of 1822 were lifted above the
sea.): but I heard it confidently asserted, that a sentinel on duty,
immediately after the shock, saw a part of a fort, which previously was not
within the line of his vision, and this would indicate that the uplifting
was not horizontal: it would even appear from some facts collected by Mr.
Alison, that only the eastern half of the bay was then elevated. Through
the kindness of this same gentleman, I am able to give an interesting
account of the changes of level, which have supervened here within
historical periods: about the year 1680 a long sea-wall (or Prefil) was
built, of which only a few fragments now remain; up to the year 1817, the
sea often broke over it, and washed the houses on the opposite side of the
road (where the prison now stands); and even in 1819, Mr. J. Martin
remembers walking at the foot of this wall, and being often obliged to
climb over it to escape the waves. There now stands (1834) on the seaward
side of this wall, and between it and the beach, in one part a single row
of houses, and in another part two rows with a street between them. This
great extension of the beach in so short a time cannot be attributed simply
to the accumulation of detritus; for a resident engineer measured for me
the height between the lowest part of the wall visible, and the present
beach-line at spring-tides, and the difference was eleven feet six inches.
The church of S. Augustin is believed to have been built in 1614, and there
is a tradition that the sea formerly flowed very near it; by levelling, its
foundations were found to stand nineteen feet six inches above the highest
beach-line; so that we see in a period of 220 years, the elevation cannot
have been as much as nineteen feet six inches. From the facts given with
respect to the sea-wall, and from the testimony of the elder inhabitants,
it appears certain that the change in level began to be manifest about the