34^ JOURNAL OF CONCHOLOGY, VOL. I4, NO. II, JULY, I9I5. 



quite an unsuitable liabitat for moUusks. Nevertheless, I spent hours 

 in examining with a lens quantities of this unpromising material from 

 the most likely places without finding the smallest fragment of any 

 shell whatever. The swamps were alike unproductive of freshwater 

 species. I have for many years been in the habit of examining 

 anchor-mud for small shells — often with interesting results. In 

 Brazil my siftings only resulted in a single example of a minute 

 Cylichna at Paranagua. 



From Brazil we proceeded, via the Strait of Magellan, to the nitrate 

 coast of Chile. We anchored one night at the ill-fated Port Famine, 

 a small collection of squalid wooden huts, on the east side of Cape 

 Froward, the most southerly point of the mainland of South America, 

 and here I collected a quantity of anchor-mud, which subsequent 

 examination by Mr. H. B. Preston [see below) proved interesting, as 

 it contained no less than four new species. 1 had no opportunity of 

 landing, or of dredging in the strait, but judging by the accounts of 

 Uarwin in the "Voyage of the 'Beagle,'" R. O. Cunningham in 

 " Notes on the Natural History of the Strait of Magellan," and W. P. 

 Snow in " A Two Years' Cruise in Terra del Fuego," there is a great 

 deal to be done, especially with the small species. Though our 

 passage was made on January 27 (the midsummer of the southern 

 hemisphere), the weather was bitterly cold, the sun only now and 

 then breaking through violent sleet and rain squalls. On our home- 

 ward passage, some weeks later, we came through without stopping 

 to anchor, and enjoyed one of the proverbial four fine days that 

 occur yearly in those parts, and I was enabled to take a series of 

 photographs of the glaciers and snow-capi>ed mountain peaks so well 

 known from the descriptions of the authors above referred to. 



Our next stop was at Coronel, up the Chile coast, where I obtained 

 from the debris emptied from fishing boats some enormous Mytilus 

 tiiagellanicus Ch., covered with a fine series of Calyptrcea. 'J'hese 

 huge mussels proved excellent eating. The anchor-mud here, though 

 containing interesting Foramiuifera, proved destitute of mollusks. 



We then proceeded to the nitrate coast, and spent some days load- 

 ing at Iquique, Caleta Buena, and Pisagua. Along the coast of the 

 nitrate region, for some four hundred miles, the mountains in an 

 almost unbroken line descend steeply into the sea, and most of the 

 small coast towns are built on a imrrow talus at the water's edge. 

 No rain having fallen for more than fifty years, there is absolutely no 

 vegetation, and the small streams which trickle down the gullies here 

 and there are so impregnated with nitrate that the water is undrink- 

 able — all drinking water is condensed and very dear. The inhabit- 

 ants, however, seem to prefer " pisco," a native spirit, which takes its 



