1() REMARKS AND OPINIONS. 



ception, a broad but not deep river, conceal the 

 view of the Cordilleras de los Andes, which rise 

 with their snows and volcanoes at a distance of at 

 least forty leagues from the sea, behind a broad 

 and fruitful plain, and offer to scientific research 

 a yet unexplored field. Molina, who has seen the 

 Cordilleras in Peru and in this kingdom, is of 

 opinion that these summits are superior in height 

 to those of Quito. 



The mountain, at whose foot lies the town, and 

 on its summit the fortress, is mouldered granite, 

 which contains undecompounded masses of the 

 same species of rock. The hills which form the pe- 

 ninsula, are of schistus, over which lies red and 

 dark-coloured clay; and the low hills, against which 

 Talcaguano reclines towards the Port of San Vin- 

 cent, consist only of strata of such clay, of which 

 several, and particularly the upper ones, are filled 

 with the conchylia, still living in these seas {Co7i- 

 cholepas Peruviana^ a large Mytilus, &c.) in an 

 unaltered state. The sand of the beach and ol" 

 the plain is tinged grey by fragments of slate. 



The celebrated stones of the Rio de las Cruzes, 

 near Aranco, are congeries of chiastolite. Na- 

 ture on this southern frontier of Chili, the Italy of 

 the New World, has not the unlimited productive 

 power which filled us with astonishment at Saint 

 Catharine's ; and the mere difference of latitude 

 does not necessarily seem to produce the difference 

 in the two Floras. The mountains separate the 



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