252 CENTRAL CHILE. [curar. x11, 
CHAPTER XII. 
Valparaiso—Excursion to the foot of the Andes—Structure of the land— 
Ascend the Bell of Quillota—Shattered masses ef greenstone— Immense 
valleys—Mines—State of miners—Santiago—Hot-baths of Cauquenes— 
Gold-mines—Grinding-mills—Perforated stones—Habits of the Puma— 
El Turco and Tapacolo—Humming-birds. 
CENTRAL CHILE. 
July 23rd.—The Beagle anchored late at night in the bay of 
Valparaiso, the chief seaport of Chile. When morning came, 
everything appeared delightful. After Tierra del Fuego, the 
climate felt quite delicious—the atmosphere so dry, and the 
heavens so clear and blue with the sun shining brightly, that all 
nature seemed sparkling with life. The view from the anchor- 
age is very pretty. The town is built at the very foot of a range 
of hills, about 1600 feet high, and rather steep. From its posi- 
tion, it consists of one long, straggling street, which runs parallel] 
to the beach, and wherever a ravine comes down, the houses are 
piled up on each side of it. The rounded hills, being only par- 
tially protected by a very scanty vegetation, are worn into num- 
berless little gullies, which expose a singularly bright red soil. 
From this cause, and from the low whitewashed houses with tile 
subject has lately been treated excellently by Mr. Hayes, in the Boston 
Journal (vol. iv. p. 426). The author does not appear aware of a case pub- 
lished by me (Geographical Journal, vol. ix. p. 528), of a gigantic boulder 
embedded in an iceberg in the Antarctic Ocean, almost certainly one hundred 
miles distant from any land, and perhaps much more distant. In the Ap- 
pendix I have discussed at leagth, the probability (at that time hardly 
thought of) of icebergs, when stranded, grooving and polishing rocks, like 
glaciers. This is now a very commonly received opinion; and I cannot 
still avoid the suspicion that it is applicable even to such cases as that of the 
Jura. Dr. Richardson has assured me, that the icebergs off North America 
push before them pebbles and sand, and leave the submarine rocky flats 
quite bare: it is hardly possible to doubt that such ledges must be polished 
and scored in the direction of the set of the prevailing currents. Since 
writing that Appendix, I have seen in North Wales (London Phil. Mag., 
vol. xxi. p. 180) the adjoining action of glaciers and of floating icebergs. 
