14* FALKLAND ISLANDS. [CHAT, ix 



which have been brought to the spot on purpose. From their previous 

 treatment, being too much terrified to leave the herd, they are easily 

 driven, if their strength last out, to the settlement 



The weather continued so very bad that we determined to make a 

 push, and try to reach the vessel before night From the quantity of 

 rain which had fallen, the surface of the whole country was swampy. 

 I suppose my horse fell at least a dozen times, and sometimes the 

 whole six horses were floundering in the mud together. All the little 

 streams are bordered by soft peat, which makes it very difficult for the 

 horses to leap them without falling. To complete our discomforts we 

 were obliged to cross the head of a creek of the sea, in which the water 

 was as high as our horses' backs ; and the little waves, owing to the 

 violence of the wind, broke over us, and made us very wet and cold. 

 Even the iron-framed Gauchos professed themselves glad when they 

 reached the settlement, after our little excursion. 



The geological structure of these islands is in most respects simple. 

 The lower country consists of clay-slate and sandstone, containing 

 fossils, very closely related to, but not identical with, those found in the 

 Silurian formations of Europe ; the hills are formed of white granular 

 quartz rock. The strata of the latter are frequently arched with perfect 

 symmetry, and the appearance of some of the masses is in consequence 

 most singular. Pernety * has devoted several pages to the description 

 of a Hill of Ruins, the successive strata of which he has justly compared 

 to the seats of an amphitheatre. The quartz rock must have been 

 quite pasty when it underwent such remarkable flexures without being 

 shattered into fragments. As the quartz insensibly passes into the 

 sandstone, it seems probable that the former owes its origin to the 

 sandstone having been heated to such a degree that it became viscid, 

 and upon cooling crystallized. While in the soft state it must have 

 been pushed up through the overlying beds. 



In many parts of the island the bottoms of the valleys are covered in 

 an extraordinary manner by myriads of great loose angular fragments 

 of the quartz rock, forming " streams of stones." These have been 

 mentioned with surprise by every voyager since the time of Pernety. 

 The blocks are not waterworn, their angles being only a little blunted ; 

 they vary in size from one or two feet in diameter to ten, or even more 

 than twenty times as much. They are not thrown together into 

 irregular piles, but are spread out into level sheets or great streams. It 

 is not possible to ascertain their thickness, but the water of small 

 streamlets can be heard trickling through the stones many feet below 

 the surface. The actual depth is probably great, because the crevices 

 between the lower fragments must long ago have been filled up with 

 sand. The width of these sheets of stones varies from a few hundred 

 feet to a mile ; but the peaty soil daily encroaches on the borders, and 

 even forms islets wherever a few fragments happen to lie close 

 together. In a valley south of Berkeley Sound, which some of our 

 party called the "great valley of fragments," it was necessary to cross 

 * Pernety, "Voyage aux Isles Malouines," p. 526, 



