2o8 FALKLAND ISLANDS 



them sloping at an angle of ten degrees with the horizon ; but 

 in some of the level, broad- bottomed valleys, the inclination is 

 only just sufficient to be clearly perceived. On so rugged a 

 surface there was no means of measuring the angle ; but to 

 give a common illustration, I may say that the slope would 

 not have checked the speed of an English mail-coach. In 

 some places a continuous stream of these fragments followed 

 up the course of a valley, and even extended to the very crest 

 of the hill. On these crests huge masses, exceeding in dimen- 

 sions any small building, seemed to stand arrested in their 

 headlong course : there, also, the curved strata of the archways 

 lay piled on each other, like the ruins of some vast and ancient 

 cathedral. In endeavouring to describe these scenes of violence 

 one is tempted to pass from one simile to another. We may 

 imagine that streams of white lava had flowed from many 

 parts of the mountains into the lower country, and that when 

 solidified they had been rent by some enormous convulsion 

 into myriads of fragments. The expression " streams of 

 stones," which immediately occurred to every one, conveys 

 the same idea. These scenes are on the spot rendered 

 more striking by the contrast of the low, rounded forms of the 

 neighbouring hills. 



I was , interested by finding on the highest peak of one 

 range (about 700 feet above the sea) a great arched fragment, 

 lying on its convex side, or back downwards. Must we believe 

 that it was fairly pitched up in the air, and thus turned ? Or, 

 with more probability, that there existed formerly a part of 

 the same range more elevated than the point on which this 

 monument of a great convulsion of nature now lies. As the 

 fragments in the valleys are neither rounded nor the crevices 

 filled up with sand, we must infer that the period of violence 

 was subsequent to the land having been raised above the 

 waters of the sea. In a transverse section within these valleys 

 the bottom is nearly level, or rises but very little towards cither 

 side. Hence the fragments appear to have travelled from the 

 head of the valley ; but in reality it seems more probable that 

 they have been hurled down from the nearest slopes ; and that 

 since, by a vibratory movement of overwhelming force,^ the 



^ "Nous n'avons pas etc moins saisis d'ctonnement a la vile de rinnonibiable 

 quantite de pierres de toutes grandeurs, bouleversees les unes sur les autres, et 



