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

1835. SITUATION — HOUSES — SUGGESTIONS. 477 anyone, by purchasing the ground, and distributing it so fairly that each man should gain rather than lose. The sum necessary for purchasing ground for a new city, would not have been greater than might have been borrowed ; and repaid in ten years out of the custom-house. Perhaps there is not a situation in the world much more advantageous to the prosperity of a commercial city than this of which we are speaking. Centrally placed between the great and navigable river Bio Bio, the port of San Vicente, the noble bay of Concepcion, and an easy communication by land with the best part of Chile, 'a part which may well be called one of the finest countries in the world : — with a large extent of level and fertile land on all sides — with the means of obtaining water by sinking wells to a small depth, as well as by an aqueduct from the Bio Bio — and with the blessing of an un- exceptionable climate — how could the New Concepcion fail to thrive, and increase rapidly ? It might be shaken down and destroyed by an earthquake as soon as built, maybe said. Proba- bly, may be replied, if the inhabitants should be so unwise as to build houses of brick and stone, one or two stories in height, and with heavily tiled roofs. But let them try another mode of building. Wood is abundant, and let them make that the only material of which either walls or roofs shall be composed. A strong frame-work, similar in some measure to that of a ship, lightly covered or ceiled with thin planks, and roofed with shingles,* would, if placed on the ground and not let into it as foundations usually are, withstand the convulsions of any earthquake which has yet happened in that tormented country. Why do not the Chilians pay more attention to the remark of the aborigines of Peru, who, when they saw the Spaniards digging deep foundations for their buildings, said, " You are building your own sepulchres .''"f The houses of the natives of Peru were in those days built without foundations, simply upon the levelled ground ; and they withstood the severest shocks. No house should extend far * Small pieces of wood, like tiles. t Ulloa, vol. i. p. 340.