EARTHQUAKES 



ever, may state that I have been highly interested in the 

 geology of this region, and I only regret that I had no 

 opportunity to make my observations more extensive by 

 crossing the mountains to Mendoza, situated at their 

 eastern foot. Dr. Pickering, Mr. Rich, and others who 

 were at Lima much of the time our vessel remained at 

 Valparaiso, ascended and passed the summit of the Peru- 

 vian Andes. They reached an elevation exceeding 16,000 

 feet. I will add one fact, as the knowledge of it by your- 

 self will prove of no injury to the expedition ; it is, that 

 Dr. Pickering collected a large ammonite near the sum- 

 mit of the Andes at 16,000 feet elevation. The existence 

 of extensive deposits of red sandstone and accompany- 

 ing shales in this part of the Andes has long been 

 known. 



' The frequency of earthquakes in Chili has given a 

 peculiarity to the style of building. The houses rarely 

 consist of more than a single story, and throughout the 

 villages, and very generally in the large cities, they are 

 formed of a framework of reeds, covered externally with 

 mud and plaster. The better houses have the form of a 

 hollow square, surrounding thus a large court, to which 

 the people retire during an earthquake. The ceilings are 

 rarely plastered, but are sometimes covered with cotton 

 cloth. Such houses might fall about their heads without 

 any very serious accident. The yielding nature of the 

 reeds, moreover, will bear a heavy shaking before they 

 fall. Very many of the houses scattered through the 

 country are not even plastered outside, but consist of 

 reeds or brush very imperfectly woven together, and 

 some are even made of corn-stalks. Often while riding 

 by at night, I have seen, through the open brushwood 

 wall, the inmates collected around a blazing fire it was 

 late in autumn and the nights were cool made in the 

 centre of their shanty-like houses. I have rarely enjoyed 

 myself more than in some of these huts at night, while 

 on our excursion through the country to the mountains. 

 Everything so novel. Ourselves, with the family, col- 

 lected around a few coals which men brought in and 

 emptied on the floor the bare earth ; the large wooden 

 bowl of casuela a kind of fricassee of chicken with pota- 

 toes and other vegetables, hot with pepper around which 

 we collected on rude stools, and each one with his wooden 



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