300 MINERAL SPRINGS. 



for Santiago, where we arrived without incident the memory of the landscape still pleasantly 

 impressed. 



CAUQUENES. 



The baths which have obtained most celebrity for the cures effected in obstinate rheumatic 

 and chronic affections following venereal disorders, and that have resisted every other remedy, 

 are those of Cauquenes, in the department of Rancagua. They are from seven to eight leagues 

 east of the town of that name, near the south bank of the river Cachapual, and on a sort of 

 table-land high above the bed of the stream. From this spot a prospect is commanded even 

 more romantic and beautiful than from the hill back of Colina just described. In the rear of 

 the table-land, the hill-sides are covered with trees ; farther back, snow is visible eternally ; and 

 in front, the river winds to the southwest, across a plain unsurpassed in fertility, and presenting 

 all the loveliness of landscape this glorious valley has to boast of. The surrounding formation 

 is a secondary stratified porphyry, and the immediate site of the baths a very modern conglo- 

 merate (pudding-stone), which may be traced in horizontal beds to the bottom of the valley. 



Eanges of buildings, with corridors and an internal patio, Chile fashion, have been erected for 

 the accommodation of visitors, though, instead of being managed as a hotel, each of the thirty 

 parties who may find shelter under its roofs is obliged to seek elsewhere for every other neces- 

 sity. A bodegon at hand can furnish most of the indispensable articles of food ; and as a penance 

 for the crime of omission to provide themselves before leaving home, visitors are contented, per- 

 haps, to pay the two or three prices demanded. During summer the season when they are 

 most frequented owing partially to radiated heat from the rocky back-ground of the narrow 

 valley in which they are situated, the air is excessively dry, and the temperature by day very 

 hot. There are four principal supplies of water, with temperatures ranging, in the month of 

 April, from 79. 2 to 120. 5, and with constituents very closely analogous to those of Apoquindo. 

 Two of them, called the " Pelambre" and " Corrimiento," evolve gas which is apparently azote. 

 For a more minute account, the reader is referred to Chapter XV. 



PANIMAVILA. 



There are no other mineral waters of much repute until arriving south of latitude 35, where 

 those of Panimavila are situated the only instance of mineral springs at the level of the valley 

 throughout its extent. Their height above the ocean is less than 900 feet ; and the geological 

 situation being somewhat different from that of all the localities where mineral waters are found 

 in Chile, they deservedly attract the naturalist's attention. The modern alluvial stratum con- 

 stituting the surface portion of the Great Plain, forms a deep bay within the Andes nearly a 

 league in diameter. This is almost surrounded by hills of secondary stratified porphyry, iden- 

 tical with the formation about the baths previously mentioned ; but the springs here, instead of 

 issuing from the midst of the porphyry, rise from alluvial and somewhat muddy ground almost 

 in the centre of the bay. On this account the waters have an earthy odor. They soon separate 

 into little streams that moisten the adjoining plain, but neither become turbid nor leave 

 deposits or saline efflorescences. The water is of the same temperature 88. 4 in four or five 

 different springs, is perfectly clear, emits no gas, though possessing the odor of mud, and is 

 extremely disagreeable to the taste. Its principal mineral ingredients are chloride of sodium, 

 sulphate of soda, and sulphate of lime, which, with other organic substances in smaller propor- 

 tions, amount to 0.37 grain in 1,000 by weight. Being in the vicinity of Linares, which has 

 a population of 3,000 souls, and only twelve leagues from Talca, where there are 15,000 people, 

 its healthy and temperate climate renders it a favorite resort ; and for a long period a greater 

 number of convalescents have frequented Panimavila than any other watering-place in the 

 republic. It has better accommodations for invalids than any of them. 



