THE ARGENTINE UPLAND. 361 



of the meridian as far as tlie break wbicli gives access to the waters of the great 

 Magellanic fiords. 



To this range follows eastwards a pre-Cordillera, to which Moyano has given 

 the name of Cordillera de los Baguales (" Wild Horses"), and which stretches 

 some hundred miles north and south, without greatly deviating from the meri- 

 dional direction. Mounts Stokes and Payne belong to this system, whose crests 

 rano-e from 5,000 to 6,500 feet. A third less uniform and less elevated chain 

 (5,000 feet) falls below the snow line, but exceeds the others in picturesque 

 scenery, thanks to the fantastic forms of its erupted rocks, towers, obelisks, temples, 

 and the like. Above this range rise the true Mount Chalten and other active 

 or extinct volcanoes, and to the same igneous system belongs the Cordillera de 

 Latorre, with several conspicuous peaks — Très Sabios (" Three Sages"), Philippi, 

 Gay, Domeyko — and with one crater apparently' of quite recent origin. 



On the surface of the region sloping in the direction of the Atlantic there 

 stretches a great sheet of scoriae and other erupted matter, which is pierced at 

 intervals by old volcanic cones, some isolated, some developing continuous chains. 

 Here the estuary of the Santa Cruz Paver is indicated from a distance by the 

 conspicuous landmark of Mount Leon, a limestone crag about 1,000 feet high. 

 This solitary eminence is pierced b}' caverns, the resort of pumas, while the 

 condor builds its nest on its rocky ledges. 



South of the Andes proper, the coast is indented by a thousand inlets of all 

 kinds, and here the summits assume an insular aspect, thanks to the surrounding 

 bays, straits and lakes. Between Skyring Water and the great bend of Magellan 

 Strait, the orographic system is reduced to a single ridge only a few yards high. 

 But it again rises in the imposing headland of Cape Froward, and, on the other 

 side of the strait, in the superb Mounts Sarmiento, Darwin, and Français, with 

 their girdle of glaciers. Farther on the system develops a vast curve in the 

 direction from west to east, terminating in Staten Island with summits some 

 3,000 feet high. This Argentine island forms the terminal rock in the long semi- 

 circular range of the Andean Mountains, which begin with the island of Trinidad 

 in the Caribbean Sea, 



Staten Island, the Dutch Staatenland, and the Spanish Sierra de los Estados, 

 faces the south-eastern extremity of Fuegia, from which it is separated by Le 

 Maire strait, averaging from 15 to 18 miles in width. It extends a distance of 

 44 miles in the direction from south-west to north-east ; but its shores are so 

 indented with bays and inlets that it is nowhere more than 12 miles wide, the 

 mean being somewhat less than 5 miles. To the gaze of passing seafarers the 

 whole land, which has an area of about 200 square miles, presents nothing but 

 a chaos of cliffs and sharp peaks clad with a perpetual snowy mantle. It 

 terminates westwards in Cape Barthélémy and South Cape, whose projecting 

 headlands enclose Franklin Bay. On the north side are developed the spacious 

 Flinders Bay, and the two ports Hopner and Parry, which are followed eastwards 

 by two other deep fiord-like inlets, Port Cook and Havre Saint-Jean, near Cape 

 St. Jean, the terminal headland tov^'ards the east. On the south side are Blossom 



