Chile. 369 



Moreover, these occur on a gigantic scale. Imagine moun- 

 tains 5000 to 6000 feet high topped by icefields covering many 

 square miles, from which powerful torrents lead down by narrow, 

 tortuous steep-sided valleys to the lower grounds. 



Then imagine your volcanic outburst, such as that of Volkan 

 Viego, accompanied by deluges of hot ashes and great rivers of 

 molten lava. All these, you must remember, on the top of and 

 suddenly melting all the snow and ice. 



It is not easy to get a clear picture of the destruction so 

 caused, and of the extraordinary jumble of stones, sand, mud, 

 and lava that filled up the Santa Gertrudis valley. 



Ever since the Andes were made this sort of destruction has 

 been going on, and it has been accompanied by upheavals and 

 subsidences. 



Somewhere about the beginning of the tertiary we find 

 Southern Chile occupied by forests of conifers and other trees, 

 with also many ferns. These became the beds of liquite now 

 found near Concepcion, at Lota, Coronel, Arauco, even at Sandy 

 Point, in the Straits of Magellan, and at various places up th? 

 east side of the Andes. 



Still later all Northern Chile was submerged, and a great sea 

 occupied the present nitrate fields. When this sea dried up, 

 through elevation, the nitric acid of these seaweeds, in contact 

 with gypsum and limestone, produced nitrate of soda. Some 

 400,000,000,000 of kilogrammes are supposed to exist, and the 

 value of the export, iodine and nitrate, in 1901 was ^9,181,440. 

 The borate of lime alone came to ^1^97, 680. 



Middle Chile, including the rich central valley, was, how- 

 ever, almost filled up even then by the richest soil, brought 

 down by the Andine rivers, and blended at all the many diverse 

 rocks which compose that chain. 



The transgressions of the sea filled the lower part of the 

 Chile valley with water, but the valley itself can be traced in 

 sounds and inlets right down to Cape Horn. 



Thus, Chile consists of (i) the Western Mountains; (2) the 

 valley nitrate desert, rich land or sea inlet; (3) Andes, with its 

 river system of valleys; and (4) another valley, the "Moreno," 

 which is partly occupied by great fresh-water lakes, and partly 

 filled by shingles or lavas or sand of recent deposit. 



To the east stretches the monotonous terraces and tablelands 



