GEOGRAPHY. 5 



morly a military stat i.n. an<l the scene of many a desperate straggle with the fierce Pehuenches 

 and wilder liiimlits ul' l'inelii,-ra. now but a dilapidated i>ile "1 hrieks. Alter l.retikfaat at th 

 li.. UN,. .,i a irnide, the party entered the gorges of the mountains, with fine forest trees, crystal 

 MIS. and wild scenery on every side. An hour's ride brought them to a rough granitic 

 riclire, some three hundred feet high, from the top of which tin- view was magnificent : in front. 

 Antiiro, l.lark and desolate; to the southward, Sierra Belluda, a lofty, rugged, and Alpine 

 pile, white with eternal snows, down who innunn -ruble cascades dashed headlong to the 



valleys; to the north, a lower though picturesque range of mountains ; and at their feet the 

 river Laja, here a small but romantic stream foaming through a deep gorge, its volume aug- 

 mented at short intervals by torrents that fall over nearly vertical cliffs. At the foot of this 

 ridge they entered upon volcanic sconce, volcanic sand, ashes, and other evidences of former 

 explosions. Over this they travelled for about three hours, to a massive stream of hardened 

 lava, the outpouring of some previous eruption. Beyond it, there is a belt of vegetation, 

 with grass and wild strawberries ; and a little further on, another though a smaller stream of 

 scoriaceous lava. Ascending the cone of an extinct crater, perhaps three hundred feet high, 

 the new crater was immediately before, and the lake of La Laja below them, to the eastward. 

 Here they intended to have passed the night, in full view of the burning mass ; but a sudden 

 stm m of rain drove them again to the trees for shelter. From thence they witnessed the 

 glare, but heard no explosions during the night ; and early on the following morning ascended 

 a hill, from which there was a better view than was permitted from that to which the rain had 

 driven them. 



Mr. Smith says, that Antuco is a regular cone, with sides inclined at an angle of 45. It is 

 covered with snow perpetually for about one third of the distance from its apex downwards ; and 

 showers of sand and ashes, thrown out at intervals, keep it blackened. Though perceptible at 

 no great distance, the light and smoke from its summit are incessant, and have been wit- 

 nessed from time immemorial. This last eruption formed two small craters, about two thirds 

 of the height of the mountain up the northern side ; and the current of descending lava has 

 dammed up the outlet of the lake by a solid wall more than 250 yards wide and 15 yards thick. 

 This is black as the volcano itself, and, with the other analogous masses in the vicinity, presents 

 a grand, almost terrible, scene of desolation. In the midst of snow-peaked mountains, without 

 a tree on its margin, or a fowl on its surface, the lake seemed lifeless ; indeed, the whole locality 

 was apparently marked for the display of nature's wildest phenomena a gloomy and inhospita- 

 ble region, whose silence is rarely broken except by the thunders of the volcanos, the violence 

 of storms, or the whoops of wandering Pehuenches. 



The eruption had nearly ceased when they arrived. There were occasional small descending 

 streams like molten iron, but no violent outbursts. At the same time there was heard a noise 

 resembling the rolling of a cart-load, or, rather, of a hundred cart-loads, of iron over a rough 

 road, broken masses of rock being evidently jostling one another in a war for supremacy within 

 the bowels of the earth. 



Between Antuco and El Descabezado, a new volcano burst out on the 26th November, 1847. 

 For several days this filled the air with the odor of burning sulphur, and its smoke was visible 

 from Talca during more than a year. The cone then thrown up is about 300 feet high, though, 

 from being within the Cordilleras, it is not visible from the plain. Its discharges of smoke had 

 ceased entirely in April, 1852 ; and as every eminence in the range from that called Copiapo, 

 in latitude 27 S., to Antuco, had been seen within the year then terminating, there was con- 

 clusive evidence that no active volcano existed within those summits. 



Between Antuco and Villarica there are two other volcanos, which wer.e active at the close of 

 1852 : Llayma, near the head-waters of the river Imperial, and Llogol, within a few leagues of 

 it. The natives mention a third in the same vicinity, which they call Changid ; but there was 

 no smoke seen to issue from it at the date above mentioned. Natives often mistake summer 

 lightning over the Andes for volcanic fires, more especially after an earthquake a phenomenon 



