24 DESCRIPTIVE GEOGRAPHY. 



Longavi, the two being subsequently called Loncomilla. The Longavi and Achihueno also 

 rise within the Andes, one to the north and the other to the south of the Cerro Nevado. 

 Though neither of so great volume nor so long as the Perquilaoquen, they are much more 

 rapid. Only the lower half of the Loncomilla was visited by me. Generally, that has steep 

 rocky or alluvial banks, separated from fifty- to one hundred yards according to the locality, 

 and which, in the same manner, vary in height from fifteen to forty feet. Its length is only 

 twenty miles, through ten of which it is navigable even in the dry season by launches carrying 

 forty tons. For these ten miles it runs through and parallel with the mountains composing 

 the Western Cordilleras, its water clear, and current scarcely exceeding two miles per hour. 

 As might be inferred from its sluggishness, there is very little shingle or sand, and its bed par- 

 takes much of the rocky character of its banks. 



After draining the plain to the north and northeast, through nearly seventy miles, the 

 Claro empties into the Maule twelve miles below the Loncomilla. This, also, is a stream of 

 clear water from forty to fifty yards wide in the wet season and early summer, when it is navi- 

 gable as high up as Talca ; but which between January and June, at a league from its 

 mouth, is only a brook, never exceeding twenty yards wide nor two feet deep. 



Between the junction of the Claro and Loncomilla, the Maule may be said to enter the West- 

 ern Cordilleras ; the first-named stream having washed the base of these mountains during the 

 last forty miles of its course. From thence to the ocean, a distance of near eighty miles by 

 the windings of the stream, the mountains on both sides are broken ranges of hills, never less 

 than 200 nor more than 1,000 feet high. In some places they slope to the water; in others, 

 terminate in short and narrow terraces or plateaus twenty feet above its level ; and, except 

 where occasional strata of rocks crop out, the whole is covered with forest-trees and plants in 

 great luxuriance and variety. Until quite near to its mouth, the river apparently increases 

 very little in width, its mean breadth from the Claro to within three leagues of the ocean not 

 exceeding one hundred yards. Below the Claro, islands and deposites of shingle become much 

 less frequent. The river bed, however, is by no means a uniformly inclined plane, but in places 

 is obstructed by strata of rocks or accumulations of rolled stones, over which the rapidity of 

 the current is much increased. If we consider the elevation of Talca (derived from six barome- 

 trical observations on four different days) to be the same as that of the mouth of the Loncomilla, 

 (and it cannot differ very greatly,) the average fall of the Maule will be nearly eight feet per 

 mile.* As more detailed information is given in Chapter XV, it need only be added here, 

 that the river is navigable, at all seasons, by vessels of 300 tons to Constitucion, a secure port 

 within its mouth, and by boats drawing eighteen inches water as high as half way up the Lon- 

 comilla. 



This is the most northern of the rivers of Chile which is useful, except for irrigation or drain- 

 age; and the others will be briefly mentioned. Having their sources at greater elevations, 

 and crossing portions of the plain more above the sea-level as we advance, whilst the distance 

 from their sources to the ocean is not increased proportionately, they partake more and more 

 of the nature of torrents loaded with detritus, whose places of deposite are constantly changing, 

 and whose momentum no boat could resist. West of the ranges of mountains bounding the 

 plain, there are ferries across all of them south of Santiago ; and very near the sea, boat 

 navigation would be practicable if there were suitable anchorages in the vicinity to render 

 such mode of transport useful. But there is only one indifferent shelter for vessels between 

 Constitucion and Valparaiso, and the products of the adjoining provinces must find their way 

 to market through one or the other of these ports. Of all, the water from the Andes is divided 

 into two or more streams spread over beds of shingle and silt, sometimes more than a mile 



* On a map, in his notices of " Araucania y sus habitantes," published by Professor Domeyko in 1846, the height of Talca 

 is 374 feet; and in the "Annales des Mines" for 1848, he says only 311 feet. The number of observations from which the 

 results are derived is not mentioned ; but he used the same barometer as myself, and the extreme differences of my observa- 

 tions were only 0.201 inch, or less than 200 feet. 



