NO POTATOES FOR BREAKFAST. 7b 



summer the sky is cloudless, and in winter snow- 

 storms alone occur. 



At the place where we slept water necessarily 

 boiled, from the diminished pressure of the atmo- 

 sphere, at a lower temperature than it does in a 

 less lofty country ; the case being the converse of 

 that of a Papin's digester. Hence the potatoes, 

 after remaining for some hours in the boiling water, 

 were nearly as hard as ever. The pot was left on 

 the fire all night, and next morning it was boiled 

 again, but yet the potatoes were not cooked. I 

 found out this by overhearing my two companions 

 discussing the cause : they had come to the simple 

 conclusion " that the cursed pot (which was a new 

 one) did not choose to boil potatoes." 



March 22d. — After eating our potato-less break- 

 fast, we travelled across the intermediate tract to 

 the foot of the Portillo range. In the middle of 

 summer cattle are brought up here to graze ; but 

 they had now all been removed : even the greater 

 number of the guanacos had decamped, knowing 

 well that if overtaken here by a snow-stonn they 

 would be caught in a trap. We had a fine view 

 of amass of mountains called Tupungato, the whole 

 clothed with unbroken snow, in the midst of which 

 there was a blue patch, no doubt a glacier — a cir- 

 cumstance of rare occurrence in these mountains. 

 Now commenced a heavy and long climb, similar 

 to that up the Peuquenes. Bold, conical hills of 

 red granite rose on each hand ; in the valleys there 

 were several broad fields of perpetual snow. These 

 frozen masses, during the process of thawing, had 

 in some parts been converted into pinnacles or col- 

 umns,* which, as they were high and close together, 



* This structure in frozen snow was long since observed by 

 Scoresby in the icebergs near Spitzbergen, and lately, with more 

 care, by Colonel Jackson (Journ. of Geograph. Soc, vol. v., p. 

 12^ on the Neva. Mr. Lyell (Principles, vol. iv., p. 360) has com 



