242 Elevation of Valparaiso. pake n. 



of chiefly very young Patellae, Mytili, and other species. - 

 I found similar microscopical fragments in earth filling 

 up the central orifices of some large Fissurellaa. This 

 earth when crushed emits a sickly smell, precisely like 

 that from garden-mould mixed with guano. The earth 

 accidentally preserved within the shells, from the greater 

 heights, has the same general appearance, but it is a 

 little redder; it emits the same smell when rubbed, but 

 I was unable to detect with certainty any marine remains 

 in it. This earth resembles in general appearance, as 

 before remarked, that capping the rocks of Quiriquina 

 in the Bay of Concepcion, on which beds of sea-shells 

 lay. I have, also, shown that the black, peaty soil, in 

 which the shells at the height of 350 feet at Chiloe 

 were packed, contained many minute fragments of 

 marine animals. These facts appear to me interesting, 

 as they show that soils, which would naturally be con- 

 sidered of purely terrestrial nature, may owe their origin 

 in chief part to the sea. 



Beinsr well aware from what I have seen at Chiloe 

 and in Tierra del Fuego, that vast quantities of shells 

 are carried, during successive ages, far inland, where the 

 inhabitants chiefly subsist on these productions, I am 

 bound to state that at greater heights than 557 feet, 

 where the number of very young and small shells proved 

 that they had not been carried up for food, the only 

 evidence of the shells having been naturally left by the 

 sea, consists in their invariable and uniform appearance 

 of extreme antiquity — in the distance of some of the 

 places from the coast, in others being inaccessible from 

 the nearest part of the beach, and in the absence of 

 fresh water for men to drink — in the shells not lying 

 in heaps, — and, lastly, in the close similarity of the 

 soil in which they are embedded, to that which lower 



