PHYSICAL FEATUEES OF CHILI. 407 



This first and necessarily defective essay at a topographical chart has since been 

 greatly improved by surveys of the central region, and is being completed from year 

 to year in the northern districts lately detached from Peru and Bolivia, and 

 towards the south in the Magellanic archipelagoes. 



In 1875 the Chilian hydrographie bureau began to issue the charts of the sea- 

 board, and the national navigators now co-operate with those of Europe and the 

 United States in extending and completing the surveys of those coastlands. In 

 1882 the Romanche landed at Orange Bay, not far from Cape Horn, a group of 

 French naturalists, for the purpose of observing the transit of Venus. The occasion 

 was utilised to take more accurate surveys of the labyrinth of surrounding straits 

 and fiords, and to study the natural history and ethnology of this insular region. 



II. 



Physical Features. 



Throughout its entire length, from the Peruvian frontier to the southern 

 extremity of the continent, and even to the terminal headland of Cape Horn, Chili 

 is occupied by the great chain of the Andes, which here develops one or more 

 lateral ridges. The system is interrupted only towards its south end by straits 

 and fiords, or by now dry marine inlets. 



North of T^na, the Cordillera, which rises above the plains some sixty miles 

 from the sea, begins to bend round parallel with the coast. But the igneous 

 rocks of Peru also penetrate into Chili, where eruptive cones dominate the broad 

 pediment formed by the escarpment of the plateau. Candarave or Totupaca 

 (15,750 feet), which sends its running waters in one direction to the Pacific, in 

 another to the Bolivian Rio Maure, still emits vapours, while its fumerolles 

 deposit enormous quantities of sulphur in its crater. 



The Northern Highlands. 



Other mountains of volcanic origin are clothed with snows which feed the head- 

 streams of the Rio Tacna and of the Maure, chief afiluent of the Desaguadero. 

 Tacora (19,750 feet), dominant cone of this group, and the neighbouring Chipicani, 

 both snow-clad peaks, stand on the north side of the much-frequented Guailillas 

 or Huailillas Pass (13,750 feet). The crest of the water-parting, 1,000 feet lower 

 down, commands a view of the isolated Sahama (Sajama) cone, whose smoking 

 crest rises 21,000 feet in Bolivian territory, while within the Chilian frontier 

 smoky Pomarape scarcely falls more than 500 feet lower. Farther south, 

 Parinacota (20,930) is separated by Lake Chungarra from the ridge above which 

 Gualatieri (Huallatiri) rises to a height of 19,700 feet. Farther south, Isluya 

 (17,000), according to native report, is frequently the scene of underground 

 rumblingrs. 



