'Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society, from September 1850 to June 1852. Edited by the Secretary. Volume X.' [‎146] (279/458)

v
146
VOLCANOES OF INDIA*
indies to four feet in height, and about the same in diameter. On t[ le
outside they are hard, within they are filled up with a thick, uniform,
well-mixed mud, which every now and then runs out at the side, or over
the edge of the crater, bubbles of gas rising at intervals of three
or four minutes. There is no appearance of eruptions, of lava, or scoria,
or vestige of the agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. of actual fire : some of the volcanoes throw
out hot sea water in place of mud : they are most active during the rains,
and then occasionally emit flame and stones, as well as mud, throwing
these to a considerable height : the stones are obviously tom from
the beds through which the water passes ; portions of copper occa
sionally adhered to them. Petroleum wells abound here, as they do
all round the neghbourhood. Capt. Halsted visited Chedooba in
1841, and bis survey in the “ Childers ,, extended above 100 miles along
the coast. The shore here is marked by three well-defined terraces, or
raised beaches, covered with coral and shells, and manifestly the result
of three distinct upheavals, with considerable intervals—of just a
century, the natives believe, betwixt them. The uppermost of
these is less conspicuous and distinct than the two lower, but on the
western coast a remarkable column of rock stands out on the beach,
about 40 feet high, with oyster shells still attaching to it, showing
the second line of beach, just thirteen feet above the first. The
last of these was said by an old man of 106, who remembered
it when he was a lad of 16, to have occurred about the year 1750.*
Mr. Piddington suggests that it is not unlikely that it may have
occurred simultaneously with the eruption at Pondicherry in 1757-
natives being proverbially inaccurate as to dates—during the occurrence
of violent earthquakes, when the sea washed several times over
the lower part of the island, and then permanently retired as the land
emerged. Captain B. Smith thinks it likely to have accurred during
the Chittagong earthquake of 1762. Immense quantities of fish were
found on the recovered land, and the feasting which occurred on these
is still a favorite tradition in the island : no rent occurred in the earth,
and no lives were lost, or mischief occasioned : for more than half a
* Mrs. Somerville (Physical Geography, vol. i , p. 254.) speaks of these as the result of
gradual upheavals going on within the last hundred years : it appears to have been
effect of a sudden and instantaneous elevation, occurring just a century ago.. Ther 0 ^ 1
evidence of any subsequent change of level having occurred within this period alonU
shores of the Bay of Bengal.
ijoygred with luxi
found in the the
possess the same
re first descrifc
Journal: the con
pat, called Teel
we seen to issu<
log., 1833.
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