264 CENTRAL CHILE. | CHAP. X1I- 
perature have scarcely any mineral taste. After the great earth- 
quake of 1822 the springs ceased, and the water did not return 
for nearly a year. They were also much affected by the earth- 
quake of 1835; the temperature being suddenly changed from 
118° to 92°.* It seems probable that mineral waters rising deep 
from the bowels of the earth, would always be more deranged by 
subterranean disturbances than those nearer the surface. The 
man who had charge of the baths, assured me that in summer the 
water is hotter and more plentiful than in winter. The former 
circumstance I should have expected, from the less mixture, 
during the dry season, of cold water; but the latter statement 
appears very strange and contradictory. The periodical increase 
during the summer, when rain never falls, can, I think, only be 
accounted for by the melting of the snow: yet the mountains 
which are covered by snow during that season, are three or four 
leagues distant from the springs. I have no reason to doubt the 
accuracy of my informer, who, having lived on the spot for 
several years, ought to be well acquainted with the circumstance, 
—which, if true, certainly is very curious: for, we must suppose 
that the snow-water, being conducted through porous strata to 
the regions of heat, is again thrown up to the surface by the line 
of dislocated and injected rocks at Cauquenes ; and the regularity 
of the phenomenon would seem to indicate, that in this district 
heated rock occurred at a depth not very great. 
One day I rode up the valley to the farthest inhabited spot. 
Shortly above that point, the Cachapual divides into two deep 
tremendous ravines, which penetrate directly into the great range. 
I scrambled up a peaked mountain, probably more than six thou- 
sand feet high. Here, as indeed everywhere else, scenes of the 
highest interest presented themselves. It was by one of these 
ravines, that Pincheira entered Chile and ravaged the neighbour- 
ing country. This is the same man whose attack on an estancia 
at the Rio Negro I have described. He was a renegade half- 
cast Spaniard, who collected a great body of Indians together 
and established himself by a stream in the Pampas, which place 
none of the forces sent after him could ever discover. From this 
point he used to sally forth, and crossing the Cordillera by passes 
hitherto unattempted, he ravaged the farm-houses and drove the 
* Caldcleugh, in Philosoph. Transact. for 1836, 
