1834-] CENTRAL CHILE. 183 



prodigious masses of ice into the waters below. Lastly, some Mission- 

 aries attempting to penetrate a long arm of the sea, would behold the 

 not lofty surrounding mountains, sending down their many grand icy 

 streams to the sea-coast, and their progress in the boats would be 

 checked by the innumerable floating icebergs, some small and some 

 ?reat ; and this would have occurred on our twenty-second of June, 

 and where the Lake of Geneva is now spread out I * * 



CHAPTER XII. 



CENTRAL CHILE. 



Valparaiso Excursion to the Foot of the Andes Structure of the Land 

 Ascend the Bell of Quillota Shattered Masses of Greenstone Immense 

 Valleys Mines State of Miners Santiago Hot-baths of Cauquenes 

 Gold-mines Grinding-mills Perforated Stones Habits of the Puma 

 El Turco and Tapacolo Humming-birds. 



the chief seaport of Chile. When morning came, everything appeared 

 delightful. After Tierra del Fuego, the climate felt quite delicious 

 the atmosphere so dry, and the heavens so clear and blue with the sun 

 shining brightly, that all nature seemed sparkling with life. The view 

 from the anchorage is very pretty. The town is built at the very foot 

 of a range of hills, about 1,600 feet high, and rather steep. From 

 its position, it consists of one long, straggling street, which runs 

 parallel to the beach, and wherever a ravine comes down, the houses 

 are piled up on each side of it. The rounded hills, being only partially 

 protected by a very scanty vegetation, are worn into numberless little 

 gullies, which expose a singularly bright red soil. From this cause, 



* In the former edition and Appendix, I have given some facts on the 

 transportal of erratic boulders and icebergs in the Antarctic Ocean. This 

 subject has lately been treated excellently by Mr. Hayes, in the Boston 

 Journal (vol. iv., p. 426). The author does not appear aware of a case pub- 

 lished by me (Geographical Journal, vol. ix., p. 528), of a gigantic boulder 

 embedded in an iceberg in the Antarctic Ocean, almost certainly one hundred 

 miles distant from any land, and perhaps much more distant. In the Ap- 

 pendix I have discussed at length, the probability (at that time hardly 

 thought of) of icebergs, when stranded, grooving and polishing rocks, like 

 glaciers. This is now a very commonly received opinion ; and I cannot 

 still avoid the suspicion that it is applicable even to such cases as that of the 

 Jura. Dr. Richardson has assured me, that the icebergs off North America 

 push before them pebbles and sand, and leave the submarine rocky flats 

 quite bare ; it is hardly possible to doubt that such ledges must be polished 

 and scored in the direction of the set of the prevailing currents. Since 

 writing that Appendix, I have seen in North Wales (London Phil. Mag., 

 vol. xxi., n. 180) the adjoining action of glaciers and of floating iceberrs. 



