248 A VISIT TO THE PROVINCES 



Twenty-four miles of the track being completed, early next morning Mr. Wheelwright and 

 myself started for the city in a little hand-car. Almost at the instant of starting, one of the peons 

 who was to have assisted in propelling the car, having "been over-cautioned, or being perhaps 

 over-careless, was caught on the crank, so injuring the machinery and disabling himself, by 

 being thrown over it, that a new car and a mule were provided for us. The animal was 

 intended to drag us three or four leagues as far as the top of the rapidly ascending grade 

 after which "man-power" would be brought into action. The grade referred to is rather over 

 than under sixty feet to the mile, yet almost wholly on the natural surface, the few embank- 

 ments or cuttings in any part of it being of trifling amount. In the latter the shell strata 

 mentioned have been brought to light. These follow the undulations of the surface with great 

 regularity. Nor is it less interesting to observe how uniformly, in many places, the several 

 layers have been deposited on each other; each species having, apparently, had its era and 

 lain down to die, to be covered by one entirely distinct. Thus, there are places where clams 

 and volutes, spirals and picos (Balanas), overlie each other, as though on the under genus alone 

 could be their resting-place. Generally there is a superstratum of sand a foot thick covering 

 these deposits ; the immediate surface being sprinkled with small blanched snails, interspersed 

 with occasional tufts of green ; but of bushes or grass there are none, and the eye, having no 

 objects of comparison, falls far short of the truth in appreciating distances across these inhospita- 

 ble fields. This condition of things continues to full 500 feet above the ocean ; the same strata of 

 recent shells being visible in every cutting, if possible more distinctly separated with successive 

 elevations. Specimens of all have been brought to the United States, of which an account is 

 given in the report of Professor T. A. Conrad, Appendix H. 



At ten or twelve miles from the port a well has been sunk, and water obtained at quite a mode- 

 rate depth ; though, to avoid the risk of a deficiency during continued years of drought, it has 

 been considered prudent to enlarge its capacity by lateral chambers. As it was now noon, the 

 laborers employed at it were taking their siesta, in holes cut in the sand and covered with bits 

 of hide or old canvass, leaving apertures on one side through which to crawl. And these are 

 the only dwellings used by any of the peons at work on the whole line of road ! Beds or tables, 

 seats or culinary utensils, they know not. The bare earth serves them for the three first, and a 

 shell from the neighboring bank for the spoon with which to dip their boiled beans from a 

 common iron pot. In a country producing nothing, not even a drop of water, where every 

 article of consumption, as well as for the advance of the work, had to be conveyed from the 

 starting point, it is most fortunate that a race- could be found who are content to live so poorly 

 provided. Otherwise, the cost for the maintenance of laborers alone must have much longer 

 deterred any one from undertaking such a road. But the engineers have already brought near the 

 day when the natives laying this track must be startled from their lethargy by the scream of 

 the engines upon its rails, or the doom of certain starvation awaits them. Notwithstanding the 

 obstacles to be overcome, an advance had been made equalling any achievement of a similar nature 

 in the midst of populated and fruitful districts of other countries ; and in a little more than a 

 year they not only located and graded three fourths of the fifty-one miles, but had laid rails on 

 quite half of it, expecting to complete the remainder in four months more. The total cost of 

 the road, including station-houses, mole at Caldera, machine-shops, engines and cars, &c., 

 was $1,300,000, and its receipts at the commencement of 1853 averaged more than $32,000 

 per month. Before completion it was ascertained that none of the water could be used without 

 rapid destruction of the engines, and it became necessary to erect a distilling apparatus to obtain 

 suitable supplies. But even this has been a gain, the profits on the distilled water sold more 

 than paying for the entire quantity prepared. So gratified are the Copiapinos with the result, 

 that they have already begun extensions of the road in the directions of Chanarcillo and Tres 

 Puntas. 



About the summits of the hills we traversed, all the surface pebbles and stones have a smooth 

 and glossy appearance, which has been effected by sand driven along by the S.W. wind, con- 



