6 



CHILI. 



sometimes inclined to lament the inroad which 

 the progress of civiUzation must soon make upon 

 their simple habits. 



On the 18th of November, our friendly host 

 accompanied one of the officers of the Conway 

 and myself in a ride of about twenty-five miles, 

 up the valley of Coquimbo ; during which, the 

 most remarkable thing we saw was several series 

 of horizontal beds, along both sides of the valley, 

 resembling the Parallel Roads of Glen Roy, in 

 the Highlands of Scotland, so carefully examined 

 by Sir Thomas Lauder Dick, Bart, and describ- 

 ed in the ninth volume of the Edinburgh Royal 

 Society Transactions. They are so disposed as 

 to present exact counterparts of one another, at 

 the same level, on opposite sides of the valley : 

 being formed entirely of loose materials, princi- 

 pally water-worn rounded stones, from the size of 

 a nut to that of a man's head. Each of these 

 roads, or levels, resembles a shingle beach ; and 

 there is every indication of the stones having 

 been deposited at the margin of a lake, which has 

 filled the valley up to those levels. These gigan- 

 tic roads are at some places half a mile broad, but 



