CAMP ON THE RIO DB LAS M1NAS. 159 



open the mines and make of Sandy Point a profitable coaling station 

 by substituting for this lignite briquettes manufactured from an admixture 

 of lignite and English or Welsh coal. The work was in the hands of a 

 competent engineer, and already the mines had been reopened and the 

 drift driven still farther into the hill, while a diamond drill had been im- 

 ported, with which to prospect the underlying strata in hopes of finding a 

 better quality of coal, which would obviate the necessity for the manufac- 

 ture of briquettes. At a depth of some six hundred feet drilling was sus- 

 pended without meeting with any coal of the desired quality. I have 

 never learned what became of the project for the manufacture of briquettes, 

 but since the local manager of the company was strongly opposed to it, I 

 presume it was abandoned. This lignite is very pure, and while not of 

 a quality sufficiently good to commend it for sea-going vessels, it would 

 doubtless serve very well for all domestic and light steam purposes. Its 

 supply is well nigh inexhaustible. 



During our stay at this camp I rode one day up the cafton, through the 

 forests and out upon the bare, rounded summit of the mountain which 

 lies between Otway Water and the Straits of Magellan. The top of the 

 mountain presented a series of rounded hillocks separated by small 

 marshes and swamps. The surface was covered over with many huge 

 glacial bowlders and supported a growth of low subalpine plants. The 

 timber line was several hundred feet below the summit, though I should 

 not estimate the altitude at above two thousand feet. 



Otway Water is the southernmost of that intricate series of inland 

 waterways which enter the mainland from the Pacific and about the 

 nature and origin of which I shall have more to say when I come to treat 

 of the geography of Patagonia. It is about fifty miles in length, with a 

 very narrow entrance, but expanding within into a broad pear-shaped 

 body of water, lying on the north side of the Brunswick Peninsula, the 

 southernmost point of the mainland of South America. Sandy Point is 

 situated on the eastern shore of the isthmus which connects this peninsula 

 with the mainland. 



Having completed our work near Sandy Point, we started early in 

 January on our trip to the north, going by way of Gallegos and by the 

 same route as that by which I had travelled on my first visit to Sandy 

 Point during the previous expedition. We travelled leisurely and stopped 

 at various places along the route to collect birds, mammals and plants. 



