e reach of our philosophy, and must probably remain so until we are
permitted to investigate, not our planet alone and its inhabitants, but
other parts of the moral and material universe with which they may be
connected. Could our survey embrace other worlds, and the events, not of
a few centuries only, but of periods as indefinite as those with which
geology renders us familiar, some apparent contradictions might be
reconciled, and some difficulties would doubtless be cleared up. But
even then, as our capacities are finite, while the scheme of the
universe may be infinite, both in time and space, it is presumptuous to
suppose that all sources of doubt and perplexity would ever be removed.
On the contrary, they might, perhaps, go on augmenting in number,
although our confidence in the wisdom of the plan of Nature should
increase at the same time; for it has been justly said, that the greater
the circle of light, the greater the boundary of darkness by which it is
surrounded.[674]

CHAPTER XXIX.

EARTHQUAKES--_continued_.

Earthquake of Java, 1772--Truncation of a lofty cone--St. Domingo,
1770--Lisbon, 1755--Great area over which the shocks
extended--Retreat of the sea--Proposed explanations--Conception Bay,
1750--Permanent elevation--Peru, 1746--Java, 1699--Rivers obstructed
by landslips--Subsidence in Sicily, 1693--Moluccas, 1693--Jamaica,
1692--Large tracts engulfed--Portion of Port Royal sunk--Amount of
change in the last 150 years--Elevation and subsidence of land in
Bay of Baiae--Evidence of the same afforded by the Temple of Serapis.

In the preceding chapters we have considered a small part only of those
earthquakes which have occurred during the last seventy years, of which
accurate and authentic descriptions happen to have been recorded. In
examining those of earlier date, we find their number so great that
allusion can be made to a few only respecting which information of
peculiar geological interest has been obtained.

_Java_, 1772.--_Truncation of a lofty cone._--In the year 1772,
Papandayang, formerly one of the loftiest volcanoes in the island of
Java, was in eruption. Before all the inhabitants on the declivities of
the mountain could save themselves by flight, the ground began to give
way, and a great part of the volcano fell in and disappeared. It is
estimated that an extent of ground of the mountain itself and its
immediate environs, fifteen miles long and f