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Show 422 NOBTHER~ CHILE. May, 1835. (the first time this year) for about five hours. With this shower, the farmers, who plant corn near the sea-coast where the atmosphere is more humid, would break up the ground; with a second, put the seed in : and if a third should fall, they would reap in the spring a good harvest. It was interesting to watch the effect of this trifling amount of moisture. Twelve hours afterwards the ground appeared as dry as ever ; yet after an interval of ten days, all the h~ls were faintly tinged with green patches ; the grass bemg sparingly scattered in hair-like fibres a full inch in length. Before this shower every part of the surface was bare as on a high road. . . In the evening, Captain FitzRoy and myself were dmmg with Mr. Edwards, an English resident well knewn for his hospitality by all who have visited Coquimbo, when a sharp earthquake happened. I heard the forecoming rumble, but from the screams of the ladies, the running of servants, and the rush of several of the gentlemen to the doorway, I could not distinguish the motion. Some of the women afterwards were crying with terror, and one person said he should not be able to sleep all night, or if he did, it would only be to dream of falling houses. rrhe father of this gentleman had lately lost all his property at Talcahuano, and he himself only just escaped a falling roof at Valparaiso, in 1822. He mentioned a curious coincidence which then happened : he was playing at cards, when a German, one of the party, got up, and said he would never sit in a room in these countries with the door shut, since, owing to his having done so, he had nearly lost his life at Copiap6. Accordingly he opened the door ; and no sooner had he done this, than he cried out, " Here it comes again !" and the famous shock commenced. The whole party escaped. The danger in an earthquake is not from the time lost in opening a door, but from the chance of its 'becoming jammed by the movement of the walls. It is impossible to be much surprised at the fear which natives and old residents, though some of them known to be men of great command of mind, so generally experience during May, 1835. PARALLEL 'l'ERRACJ;;S. 42~ earthquak~s. I think, however, this excess of panic may be partly attnbute~ to a want of habit in governing their fears; the usual restramt of shame being here absent. Indeed the natives do not like to see a person indifferent. I heard of two Englishmen ~ho, sleeping in the open air, during a smart shock, knowmg there was no danger, did not rise. The n~tives cried out indignantly, "Look at those heretics, they Will not even get out of their beds ! " I spent two or three days in examining the step-formed terraces of shingle first described by Captain Basil Hall, in his work, so full of spirited descriptions, on the west coast of America. Mr. Lyell concluded from the account, that they must have been formed by tlie sea during the gradual rising of the land. Such is the case : on some of the steps which sweep round from within the valley, so as to front the coast, shells of existing species both lie on the surface, and are embedded in a soft calcareous stone. This bed of the most modern tertiary epoch passes downward into another, containing some living species associated with others now lost. Amongst the latter may be mentioned shells of an enormous pe~na and an oyster, and the teeth of a gigantic shark, closely allied to, or identical with the Carcharias MegaLodcn of ancient Europe; the bones of which, or of some cetaceous animal, are also present, in a silicified state, in great numbers. At Guasco, the phenomenon of the parallel terraces is very strikingly seen: no less than seven perfectly level, but unequally broad plains, ascending by steps, occur on one or both sides the valley. So remarkable is the contrast of the successive horizontal lines, corresponding on each side with the irregular outline of the surrounding mountains, that it attracts the attention of even those who feel no interest regarding the causes, which have modelled the surface of the land. The origin of the terraces of Coquimho is precisely the same, according to my view, with that of the plains of Patagonia; the only difference is that the plains are rather broader than the terraces, and that they front the Atlantic ocean instead of a valley,-which valley, however, was for- |