The Remains Of Houses, Enclosures, Irrigating
Streams, And Burial Mounds, Scattered Over This Plain, Cannot
Fail To Give One A High Idea Of The Condition And Number Of
The Ancient Population.
When their earthenware, woollen
clothes, utensils of elegant forms cut out of the hardest rocks,
tools of copper, ornaments of precious stones, palaces, and
hydraulic works, are considered, it is impossible not to respect
the considerable advance made by them in the arts of
civilization.
The burial mounds, called Huacas, are really
stupendous; although in some places they appear to be natural
hills incased and modelled.
There is also another and very different class of ruins,
which possesses some interest, namely, those of old Callao,
overwhelmed by the great earthquake of 1746, and its
accompanying wave. The destruction must have been more
complete even than at Talcahuano. Quantities of shingle
almost conceal the foundations of the walls, and vast masses
of brickwork appear to have been whirled about like pebbles
by the retiring waves. It has been stated that the land subsided
during this memorable shock: I could not discover any
proof of this; yet it seems far from improbable, for the
form of the coast must certainly have undergone some change
since the foundation of the old town; as no people in their
senses would willingly have chosen for their building place,
the narrow spit of shingle on which the ruins now stand.
Since our voyage, M. Tschudi has come to the conclusion,
by the comparison of old and modern maps, that the coast
both north and south of Lima has certainly subsided.
On the island of San Lorenzo, there are very satisfactory
proofs of elevation within the recent period; this of course
is not opposed to the belief, of a small sinking of the ground
having subsequently taken place. The side of this island
fronting the Bay of Callao, is worn into three obscure terraces,
the lower one of which is covered by a bed a mile in
length, almost wholly composed of shells of eighteen species,
now living in the adjoining sea. The height of this bed is
eighty-five feet. Many of the shells are deeply corroded, and
have a much older and more decayed appearance than those
at the height of 500 or 600 feet on the coast of Chile. These
shells are associated with much common salt, a little sulphate
of lime (both probably left by the evaporation of the
spray, as the land slowly rose), together with sulphate of
soda and muriate of lime. They rest on fragments of the
underlying sandstone, and are covered by a few inches thick
of detritus. The shells, higher up on this terrace could be
traced scaling off in flakes, and falling into an impalpable
powder; and on an upper terrace, at the height of 170 feet,
and likewise at some considerably higher points, I found a
layer of saline powder of exactly similar appearance, and
lying in the same relative position. I have no doubt that this
upper layer originally existed as a bed of shells, like that on
the eighty-five-feet ledge; but it does not now contain even a
trace of organic structure.
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