loo /. G. ANDERSSON 



the hillsides are steep, the vegetation scarce, and the trickling water 

 saturates the soil. 



On the slope of Stephens Peak, a conical sandstone hill on the 

 south coast of West Falkland, I found a recent mud-stream extend- 

 ing almost from the top of the mountain to its base, with a breadth 

 of 32 meters where it was widest. The fall of the stream was 11-19°. 

 Its material was a kind of stony clay charged with big blocks, the 

 whole having much resemblance to some types of the glacial 

 till. Also on the surface of the stream there lay numerous blocks, 

 the largest having a diameter of i . 5 meters. I removed several 

 of these big blocks to examine their bedding, and I always found 

 them to rest upon the stony mud, never upon a basement of other 

 blocks or solid rock. 



In other parts of the same slope I found ancient mud- streams 

 which were bordered by vegetation and evidently fixed at the pres- 

 ent time. In some places the fine material was washed away by 

 surface water, only to leave a residuum of sandstone blocks, a copy 

 in miniature of the large stone-runs. Between the latter and the 

 recent mud-streams of Bear Island my observations on the slopes 

 of Stephens Peak gave all the transitional stages. 



But although the solifluction is still working in exceptionally 

 favorable places in the Falkland Islands, it seems to me quite evi- 

 dent that the large stone-runs, which are covered with vegetation 

 in all places where the fine material is not washed away, were 

 formed in an earlier period, when the solifluction was working in 

 this region upon a much larger scale than today. Apparently 

 several changes in the level of the land and in the condition of the 

 climate have passed over these wonderful, timeworn giants. 



I have studied in detail, and surveyed in the scale of i : 2o,oco, 

 the big stone-river (possibly the largest in the islands) south from 

 Port Louis, which was originally described by Darwin. In a com- 

 ing paper I will publish this material in extenso, but for the present 

 purpose the following brief remarks may be sufficient. 



The open areas and strips consisting only of a chaotic accumu- 

 lation of large blocks of quartzite evidently have been formed 

 by a secondary washing away of the finer material that once filled 

 all the interspaces between the big blocks or carried parts Qf them 



