198 FALKLAND ISLANDS. [cHap. Ix. 
more striking by the contrast of the low, rounded forms of the 
neighbouring hills. 
I was interested by finding on the highest peak of one range 
(about 700 feet above the sea) a great arched fragment, lying 
on its convex side, or back downwards. Must we believe that it 
was fairly pitched up in the air, and thus turned? Or, with 
more probability, that there existed formerly a part of the same 
range more elevated than the point on which this monument of 
a great convulsion of nature now lies. As the fragments in the 
valleys are neither rounded nor the crevices filled up with sand, 
we must infer that the period of violence was subsequent to the 
land having been raised above the waters of the sea. In a trans- 
verse section within these valleys, the bottom is nearly level, or 
rises but very little towards either side. Hence the fragments 
appear to have travelled from the head of the valley; but in 
reality it seems more probable that they have been hurled down 
from the nearest slopes; and.that since, by a vibratory move- 
ment of overwhelming force,* the fragments have been levelled 
into one continuous sheet. If during the earthquake} which in 
1835 overthrew Concepcion, in Chile, it was thought wonderful 
that small bodies should have been pitched a few inches from 
the ground, what must we say to a movement which has caused 
fragments many tons in weight, to move onwards like so much 
sand on a vibrating board, and find their level? I have seen, in 
the Cordillera of the Andes, the evident marks where stupen- 
dous mountains have been broken into pieces like so much thin 
crust, and the strata thrown on their vertical edges; but never 
did any scene, like these “streams of stones,” so forcibly convey 
to my mind the idea of a convulsion, of which in historical 
records we might in vain seek for any counterpart: yet the 
progress of knowledge will probably some day give a simple 
explanation of this phenomenon, as it already has of the so long- 
* “ Nous n’avons pas été moins saisis d’étonnement & Ja vie de l’innom- 
brable quantité de pierres de toutes grandeurs, bouleversées les unes sur les 
autres, et cependant rangées, comme si elles avoient été amoncelées négli- 
gemment pour remplir des ravins. On ne se Jassoit pas d’admirer les effets 
prodigieux de la nature.’—Pernety, p. 526. 
t An inhabitant of Mendoza, and hence well capable of judging, assured 
me that, during the several years he had resided on these islands, he had 
never felt the slightest shock of an earthquake. 
