254 



FALKLAND ISLANDS. March, 1834. 



In many parts of the island, the bottoms of the valleys 

 are covered in an extraordinary manner, by myriads of great 

 angular fragments of the quartz rock. These have been men- 

 tioned with surprise by every voyager since the time of 

 Pernety. The whole may be called a stream of stones/' 

 The blocks vary in size, from that of a man's chest to ten or 

 twenty times as large, and occasionally they altogether exceed 

 such measures. Their edges show no signs of being water- 

 worn, but are only a little blunted. They do not occur thrown 

 together in irregular piles, but are spread out into level 

 sheets, or great streams. It is not possible to ascertain their 

 thickness, but the water of small streamlets could be heard 

 trickling through the stones many feet below the surface. 

 The actual depth is probably much greater, because the 

 crevices between the lower fragments must long ago have 

 been filled up with sand, and the bed of the rivulet thus 

 raised. The width of these beds varies from a few hundred 

 feet to a mile ; but the peaty soil daily encroaches on the 

 borders, and even forms islets wherever a few fragments 

 happen to lie close together. In a valley south of Berkeley 

 Sound, which some of our party called the great valley 

 of fragments,'' it was necessary to cross an uninterrupted 

 band half a mile wide, by jumping from one pointed stone 

 to another. So large were the fragments, that being over- 

 taken by a shower of rain, I readily found good shelter be- 

 neath one of them. 



Their little inclination is the most remarkable circumstance 

 in these streams of stones." On the hill-sides I have seen 

 them sloping at an angle of ten degrees with the horizon ; 

 but in some of the level, broad-bottomed valleys, the in- 

 clination is only just sufficient to be clearly perceived. On 

 so rugged a surface there was no means of measuring the 

 angle ; but to give a common illustration, I may say that 

 the slope alone would not have checked the speed of an 

 English mail-coach. In some places, a continuous stream 

 of these fragments followed up the course of a valley, and 

 even extended to the very crest of the hill. On these 



