3 



the narrow strip of land lying between the highest peaks of the Andes and the Pacific, and the 

 twenf\ -fourth ami lil'ty si\t h !- ri-i-s of south latitude. Its length, from north to south, is, 

 tlirifii.il-, 1.1)00 geographical miles, though the coast line is considerably greater, owing to its 

 numerous imlrntations. As tin- ocean approaches and recedes from the mountains unequally 

 at various parts of its length, the breadth is by no means uniform. In latitude 24, the eastern 

 homnlary line is only eighty miles from the Pacific ; in 34, it is ninety-seven miles ; in 44, 

 about one hundred and thirty miles to the outer line of Chiloe; and near 56, it terminates in 

 Cape Horn. These distances are by no means given as absolute measures, except in the par- 

 allel of 34, but as the nearest approximations to truth from all trustworthy data now attaina- 

 ble. Assuming seventy-seven miles as a mean breadth for the whole, it embraces 146,300 

 square miles of territory not half that (378,000) assigned by Abbe Molina, although he 

 made the 45 its southern boundary. Even of this there is only a small portion cultivable. 

 The great Andine chain, which stretches almost continuously from one frozen ocean to the 

 other, probably attains its maximum elevation in Chile ; and, with branches spreading in every 

 direction along its line for more than a thousand miles, to the skirts of the ocean itself, it 

 occupies quite two thirds of the republic. 



North of the thirty-third parallel, the entire space from the Argentine boundary to the 

 Pacific is occupied by mountainous ranges that lie in all imaginable directions. These have 

 but narrow intermediate valleys or basins between them rarely traversed by a single rivulet. 

 The longest, though at the same time the narrowest valleys, and which are scarcely more than 

 ravines, are those through which flow the melted snow-waters. These streams, coming from 

 great elevations, bring with them masses of stones and sand, to be distributed along uneven 

 beds ; and it is only where they approximate to the level of the ocean, and the action of the 

 tides has assisted in forming comparatively flat spaces a mile or two in width, that subsequent 

 geological changes have rendered the valleys arable. In all this region the productions of the 

 soil do not supply the necessities of one half of its limited population. 



Beginning in the extreme north, the principal chain of the Andes rises higher and higher 

 to latitude 35, from whence southward the declension of its prominent points is not less uni- 

 form. In Central Chile, it is composed of two lofty and several lower ranges of mountains, 

 enclosing lakes whose frigid waters teem with animal life, in the midst of longitudinal valleys 

 often of exquisite beauty and fertility ; black gorges and chasms, with roaring torrents, beside 

 which the nervous stand tremblingly ; oases, with trickling rivulets, to charm the lover of 

 sylvan beauty ; deserts, on which, for many continuous leagues, nature has never vouchsafed a 

 leaf of verdure ; and black and broken masses of rock towering to mid-heaven, on which the 

 snow has rested since the convulsion that raised them above the line of perpetual congelation. 

 The absence of forest trees ; the brilliancy of the snow-mantle, rendered more remarkable by 

 blackened, radiant lines that tempests denude on the giant's shoulders; and the extraordinary 

 sharpness of every outline under this wonderful atmosphere, are the characteristics which 

 most fix the attention. 



North and south of this district the number of ranges vary, there being no less than five 

 near the parallel of Talca. From their bases, in the great Chilean valley, to the pampas of 

 Buenos Ayres, the distance is about one hundred and twenty miles. Their general direction 

 coincides with a meridian of longitude; though of the minor lines, some have N.W., and 

 others N.N.E. inclinations ; whilst lateral spurs occupy nearly every point of the compass. 



Aconcagua and Tupungato, the culminating points in all the known Andine chain, unless 

 Parinacota and Sahama, in Peru, rival them, lie in a line nearly N.N.W. and S.S.E. from 

 each other, the latter being to the southward. From Aconcagua northward the main chain 

 continues in the same general direction, throwing off an infinity of lines towards the coast 

 one unbroken range extending westward, and terminating on the sea just beyond the right 

 bank of the river Quillota. Ten miles north of Tupungato originates the Dehesa range, a 

 broad and elevated chain extending in a northwest line as far as tie intersection of the meri- 



