280 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



Darwin, Professor Huxley, and other distinguished naturalists, 

 were anxious should be carefully examined. 



Accordingly, on the evening of the 21st, a very fine calm 

 day occupied in taking soundings, we anchored a few miles 

 outside of Cape Virgins, and the following morning weighed 

 early and proceeded northwards along the coast, keeping near 

 to the land. We reached the mouth of the river, about forty 

 miles from the entrance of the Strait, early in the afternoon ; 

 and after attempting to enter it, and finding that, owing to 

 an alteration in the banks of the estuary, there was to all 

 appearance no channel of sufficient depth to admit of our 

 passage, anchored at some distance from the land. Next 

 morning all the requisite apparatus for the geological cam- 

 paign, including hammers, picks, shovels, gunpowder for 

 blasting, as well as the necessary gear required for camping 

 out for a day or two, being in readiness, a party, consisting of 

 Captain Mayne, five of the officers, and myself, with a certain 

 number of the crew, left the ship at five a.m. in two boats, one 

 of which, the steam cutter, took the other, the captain's 

 galley, in tow. The day was calm and beautiful, and all 

 seemed to bode well for our excursion. In conformity with 

 the information furnished to us regarding the locality of the 

 fossil-beds, we entered the river, shaping our course for 

 some high cliffs on the left bank, about five or six miles 

 from the entrance. The country to the south of the river 

 was for the most part low and flat, though presenting 

 several distant well-marked peaks, bearing the appellation 

 of the Friars and the Convents ; while that to the north 

 possessed a much bolder character, consisting of a series of 

 rounded steep low hills, with intervening radiating valleys 

 and wide flat elevated plains, strikingly different from any- 

 thing we had previously seen in eastern Patagonia. Landing 



