March, 1835. discovery of mines. 387 



surface of the ground. Secondly, almost every labourer, 

 especially in the northern parts of Chile, understands some- 

 thing about the appearance of ores. In the great mining 

 provinces of Coquimbo and Copiapo, firewood is very scarce, 

 and men are employed in searching for it over every hill and 

 dale; and by this means nearly all the richest mines have 

 there been discovered. Chanuncillo, from which silver, to 

 the value of many hundred thousand pounds has been 

 raised in the course of a few years, was thus discovered : 

 a man having thrown a stone at his loaded donkey, after- 

 wards thought that it was very heav)^, and picking it up 

 again, he found it was full of pure silver. The vein occurred 

 at no great distance, standing up like a wedge of silver. 

 The miners also, on Sundays, taking a crowbar with them, 

 often set out on such discoveries. In the south part of 

 Chile, the men who drive cattle into the Cordillera, and who 

 frequent every ravine where there is a little pasture, are the 

 usual agents. 



March 20th. — ^As we ascended the valley, the vegetation, 

 with the exception of a few pretty alpine flowers, became 

 exceedingly scanty ; and of birds, animals, or insects, scarcely 

 one could be seen. The lofty mountains, their summits 

 marked with a few patches of snow, stood well separated 

 from each other; the valleys being filled up with an im- 

 mense thickness of stratified alluvium. I may here briefly 

 remark, without detaihng the reasons on which the opinion 

 is grounded, that in all probability this matter was accu- 

 mulated at the bottoms of deep arms of the sea, which 

 running from the inland basins, penetrated to the axis of 

 the Cordillera, — in a similar manner to what now happens 

 in the southern part of this same great range. This fact, 

 in itself most curious, as preserving a record of a very 

 ancient state of things, possesses a high theoretical interest, 

 when considered in relation to the kind of elevation by 

 which the present great altitude of these mountains has been 

 attained. 



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