CHAPTER X. 



IN THE RED SNOW COUNTRY. 



Valparaiso — Tlie Portillo Pass — Land of the Red Snow — Electrical 

 Conditions — A Swarm of Locusts — Experiments with the Redu- 

 vius — A Forest of Stone — Valley of the Copiapo — Ruins at Old 

 Callao — Antiquity of Man. 



HE Beagle reached Val- 

 paraiso on March nth, 

 from which place Darvvin 

 started on a trip across 

 the Cordillera Mountains. 

 The p^rty went by the 

 Portillo, a lofty and dan- 

 gerous pass which led 

 across the Andes to Men- 

 doza. The scenery was 

 grand in the extreme, and 

 offered a wide and varied 

 field for geological investigation. As they ascended 

 the flora changed, and the gradual replacement of 

 tropical forms by those of an alpine character was 

 observed. The vast mountains spread away on all 

 sides, offering every inducement to the geological 

 hammer of the naturalist ; and that a well-defined idea 

 7 97 



