第34章 ON THE ELEVATION OF THE WESTERN COAST OF SOUTH AME

the upper and lower surfaces of the Concholepas had generally quite scaled off: some of the Trochi and Fissurellae still partially retain their colours.It is remarkable that these shells, taken all together, have fully as ancient an appearance, although the extremely arid climate appears highly favourable for their preservation, as those from 1,300 feet at Valparaiso, and certainly a more ancient appearance than those from five to six hundred feet from Valparaiso and Concepcion; at which places I have seen grass and other vegetables actually growing out of the shells.Many of the univalves here at San Lorenzo were filled with, and united together by, pure salt, probably left by the evaporation of the sea-spray, as the land slowly emerged.(The underlying sandstone contains true layers of salt; so that the salt may possibly have come from the beds in the higher parts of the island; but I think more probably from the sea-spray.It is generally asserted that rain never falls on the coast of Peru; but this is not quite accurate; for, on several days, during our visit, the so-called Peruvian dew fell in sufficient quantity to make the streets muddy, and it would certainly have washed so deliquescent a substance as salt into the soil.Istate this because M.d'Orbigny, in discussing an analogous subject, supposes that I had forgotten that it never rains on this whole line of coast.See Ulloa's "Voyage" volume 2 English Translation page 67 for an account of the muddy streets of Lima, and on the continuance of the mists during the whole winter.Rain, also, falls at rare intervals even in the driest districts, as, for instance, during forty days, in 1726, at Chocope (7 degrees 46'); this rain entirely ruined ("Ulloa" etc.page 18) the mud houses of the inhabitants.) On the highest parts of the ledge, small fragments of the shells were mingled with, and evidently in process of reduction into, a yellowish-white, soft, calcareous powder, tasting strongly of salt, and in some places as fine as prepared medicinal chalk.

FOSSIL-REMAINS OF HUMAN ART.

In the midst of these shells on San Lorenzo, I found light corallines, the horny ovule-cases of Mollusca, roots of seaweed (Mr.Smith of Jordan Hill found pieces of seaweed in an upraised pleistocene deposit in Scotland.See his admirable Paper in the "Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal" volume 25page 384.), bones of birds, the heads of Indian corn and other vegetable matter, a piece of woven rushes, and another of nearly decayed COTTONstring.I extracted these remains by digging a hole, on a level spot; and they had all indisputably been embedded with the shells.I compared the plaited rush, the COTTON string, and Indian corn, at the house of an antiquary, with similar objects, taken from the Huacas or burial-grounds of the ancient Peruvians, and they were undistinguishable; it should be observed that the Peruvians used string only of cotton.The small quantity of sand or gravel with the shells, the absence of large stones, the width and thickness of the bed, and the time requisite for a ledge to be cut into the sandstone, all show that these remains were not thrown high up by an earthquake-wave: on the other hand, these facts, together with the number of dead shells, and of floating objects, both marine and terrestrial, both natural and human, render it almost certain that they were accumulated on a true beach, since upraised eighty-five feet, and upraised this much since INDIAN MAN INHABITED PERU.The elevation may have been, either by several small sudden starts, or quite gradual; in this latter case the unrolled shells having been thrown up during gales beyond the reach of the waves which afterwards broke on the slowly emerging land.I have made these remarks, chiefly because I was at first surprised at the complete difference in nature, between this broad, smooth, upraised bed of shells, and the present shingle-beach at the foot of the low sandstone-cliffs; but a beach formed, when the sea is cutting into the land, as is shown now to be the case by the low bare sandstone-cliffs, ought not to be compared with a beach accumulated on a gently inclined rocky surface, at a period when the sea (probably owing to the elevatory movement in process) was not able to eat into the land.With respect to the mass of nearly angular, salt-cemented fragments of sandstone, which lie under the shells, and which are so unlike the materials of an ordinary sea-beach; I think it probable after having seen the remarkable effects of the earthquake of 1835 (I have described this in my "Journal of Researches" page 303 2nd edition.), in absolutely shattering as if by gunpowder the SURFACE of the primary rocks near Concepcion, that a smooth bare surface of stone was left by the sea covered by the shelly mass, and that afterwards when upraised, it was superficially shattered by the severe shocks so often experienced here.