Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.2): between the years 1826 and 1836 : describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagles's circumnavigation of the globe

410 MARINE EXPLOSIONS FISH. Feb. which swept over Talcahuano. Having more room to expend its strength in the wider and deeper part of the bay may per- liaps have been the reason why the sea swelled rapidly, with- out breaking, near Lirquen, in the south-east part of the bay and why it broke over Tome* with violence, though not so furiously as over Talcahuano. The great waves, coming from the sea, appear to have been divided, at the entrance of Concepcion Bay, by the island of Quiriquina, and turned aside both ways, one part taking its course along the Tumbes, or western shore, towards Talcahuano ; the other across the eastern opening, towards Tome. While the bay of Concep- cion was agitated by the great waves, it was noticed by Cap- tain Walford (from his house at Lirquen), that the Colocolo was swept to and fro remarkably. She was under sail near the eastern entrance of the bay. Two explosions, or eruptions, were witnessed while the waves were coming in. One in the offing, beyond the island of Quiriquina, was seen by Mr. Henry Burdon and his family, who were then embarked in a large boat, near Tome ; it appeared to be a dark column of smoke, in shape like a tower. Another rose in the middle of the bay of San Vicente, like the blowing of an immense imaginary whale : its disappearance was followed by a whirlpool which lasted some minutes : it was hollow, and tended to a point in the middle, as if the sea was pouring into a cavity of the earth. At the time of the ruin, and until after the great waves, the water in the bay appeared to be every where boihng ; bubbles of air, or gas, were rapidly escaping ; the water also became black, and exhaled a most disagreeable sulphureous smell. Dead fish were afterwards thi'own ashore in quantities ; they seemed to have been poisoned, or suffocated; and for days together the shores of the bay were covered with fine cor- vinos, and numerous small fish. Black stinking water burst up from the earth, in several places ; and in Mr. Evans's yard, at Talcahuano, the ground swelled like a large bubble, * Tome is near the eastern entrance of the bay, where the wave would meet with more interruption than near Lirquen, though considerably less than in the western passage.