DESCRIPTIVE GEOGRAPHY. 23 



swell its volume, though only ono of any consequence empties into it from the north ; and it 

 is worthy ..I' i. mark tli.it \\ hilst there is a regular decline of the plain from Chacubuco to tin? 

 Chonos Archipelago, the principal tributaries of all the large rivers are from the southward. 

 In it^- !4vnrral extent, the Ituta is regarded hy those who know it as a wider and deeper river 

 than the Manle, with less current than the latter, though interrupted by frequent h-d'_'-- <,f 

 ft, Mr. Miers says that its banks are rocky and precipitous, preventing the use of it* waters 

 for irrigation a natural obstacle of some consequence, as in this latitude there are times when 

 agriculture would derive much benefit from such contribution. A bar across its mouth excludes 

 vessels of all classes, and there is no shelter near, where they could safely embark the abundant 

 products of the fertile country on its banks. Early writers speak of all these rivers as navi- 

 gable ; and it may be, that the gradual rising of the land and recession of the ocean, caused 

 by continued earthquakes facts now indisputably established have reduced the depth of 

 water to what it is at the present epoch ; but unless we suppose a diminution in the volume 

 from the Andes, an explanation seems more properly to be sought in the sand and shingle 

 brought down by the rivers and deposited where the currents and swell of the ocean are in 

 equilibrium. 



In a statistical account of the province of Maule, made to the supreme government in 1845, 

 the commissioners say : " The river Maule, which is the largest of all that water this province, 

 has its origin among the mountains Descabezado and Campanario, situated at the centre of 

 the cordilleras of the Andes. Thence it flows in a direction from east to west, until it dis- 

 charges itself in the ocean, traversing consequently the widest part of the republic here, which 

 is about forty leagues." They make no allusion to a lake there, nor is one of any extent men- 

 tioned in a detailed account of every visible object from the table-land at the base of the Desca- 

 bezado given in the " Annales de la Universidad de Chile," by Professor Domeyko. He says : 

 " At 3, P. M., we reached the upper plateau (meseta) of the Descabezado, which, at a spot 

 where the bases of the greater and lesser Descabezados rest, is covered with perpetual snows, 

 and from whence a small lake is seen at a little distance, as smooth and quiet as though it 

 was in the most retired and sheltered valley of the world." This can scarcely be the ten square 

 leagues of water here located by M. Gay, and it is to be regretted that his map of this vicinity 

 is less satisfactory than those of even more southern districts. 



The Descabezado, one of the summits in the fourth range counted from the plain, is still 

 some miles to the southward of the dividing line of waters, from which, to the junction of the 

 Loncomilla at the eastern base of the Western cordilleras, the Maule has few tributaries, and 

 flows in a serpentine line with a resultant direction west by south. At the same time, here, as 

 well as at many other points of the Andes, the hills separating the waters from those that fall 

 to the Atlantic are invariably less elevated than the line which would connect the great cones 

 or peaks. Deriving its supply in summer wholly from melting snows, the stream is deeper 

 and more rapid during the earliest warm days, when the sun's heat is first powerful in the lower 

 and sheltered ravines. After January the volume gradually diminishes ; and even where it 

 crosses the great plain, although the bed sometimes occupied is more than a mile wide, the 

 rapidity of its current alone renders the Maule a river of note. There it is composed of several 

 streams spread over the extent mentioned, with islands of shingle and sand occupying at least 

 three fourths of the space between them. Its main volume does not exceed forty yards in 

 width, with an average depth of two feet ; and probably three fourths of all the water at this 

 season passes through this channel. According to a MS. map in the archives at Santiago, 

 its frequent distribution into several streams continues almost to the base of the Andes. 



The Loncomilla, after gathering nearly all the water from the Andes and plain north of the 

 Nuble and the Western cordilleras, falls into the Maule six leagues south of Talca. Its three 

 principal sources are the Perquilaoquen, the Longavi, and the Achihueno. The first of these 

 has its origin within the Andes, near Cerro Florido, receiving many mountain brooks in its 

 descent to the plain, and after a most circuitous course of twenty-six leagues unites with the 



