'Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society, from September 1850 to June 1852. Edited by the Secretary. Volume X.' [‎144] (277/458)

144
VOLCANOES OF INDIA.
bay, where perfect tranquility seems for nearly a century to have
reigned, we find a period when the Coromandel coast was as much
moved by volcanic agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. as that of Arracan itself.
The earliest account we possess of any actual eruption in the Bay
of Bengal is that contained in the 1st vol. of the Annual Register, 1 776,
reprinted in the Bengal Asiatic Transactions of 1847.* It was written
by an officer on board a French East Indiaman, and addressed to his
friend at the Hague : there seems no reason to question its perfect
accuracy. In July, 1 757, fires were seen from Pondicherry to break out
on the surface of the sea three or f ur leagues from shore. These
blazed out with the greatest fury, throwing up pumice stone and com-
bustable matter. This was accompanied by a noise like thunder, or
the discharge of heavy ordnance. An island a league in length and
about the same in breadth, with a cone and crater in the centre, then
appeared, A vast quantity of dead fish were afterwards seen floating on
the surface of the water, destroyed by the eruption. The sea was some
days afterwerds so covered with pumice stone that vessels found it
difficult to make their way through it, while they rau the risk of being
burnt from the showers of hot ashes with which the air w*s darkened.
The island seems speedily to have subsided again, as we hear no further
mention made of it. A shoal, called the Goris Bank, was seen by
H. M. S. “ Melville” in a line joining Pondicherryf and Chittagong,
and a shoal is noted on an old chart as having been met in with by an
American ship in the line betwixt Pondicherry and Chedooba : both
these have since then disappeared. Mr. Piddington remarks that the
middle of last century was the great epoch of earthquakes all over the
world.
Iu 1750 Chili was visited by an earthquake, by which the town of
Conception was destroyed : the sea rolled over it, and the entire
port from thenceforth became useless. The whole shore seems
to have sustained an upheaval of about 24 feet; and shells
similar to those found in the adjoining seas are now abundant on
* Bengal Assiatic Transactions 1847, vol. xvi. p. 499. Reports and Asiatic Researches,'A
i. p. 175. The papers of the Bengal Asiatic Society are indexed: the vast amount of m
valuable information contained in the Reports can only be found bv reading them throUa •
This is the case with nearly the whole of that relating to volcanic phenomena. j
f Abridged from the remarks of Mr. Piddington on the subject of eruptions.-henfa ’
Asiatic Transactions, at supt.
Is an island calk
|een miles in lei
miles in area,
woM island, ol
Miami, cover e
little way elevafc
rable, the re
Iliere are foui
lb"cones, varyii
% are compose
^ents of stoi
lllil its, which ar
^ le summits <