July, 1835. 



COPIAPO. 



441 



party are supposed to have perished from a similar cause, 

 but their bodies to this day have never been discovered. The 

 union of a cloudless sky, low temperature, and a furious 

 gale of wind, must be I should think, in all parts of the world, 

 an unusual occurrence. 



June 29th. — We gladly travelled down the valley to our 

 former night^s lodging, and thence to near the Agua amarga. 

 On July 1st, we reached the valley of Copiapo. The smell of 

 the fresh clover was quite delightful, after the scentless air of 

 the dry sterile Despoblado. Whilst staying in the town, I 

 heard an account from several of the inhabitants of a hill in 

 the neighbourhood, which they called " El Bramador,'^ — 

 the roarer or bellower. I did not at the time pay sufficient 

 attention to the account ; but as far as I understood, the hill 

 was covered by sand, and the noise was produced only when 

 people, by ascending it, put the sand in motion. Upon 

 reading an article in the Edinburgh Journal,* I was surprised 

 to find the same circumstances, described in detail on the 

 authority of Seetzen and Ehrenbergh, as the cause of 

 the sounds, which have been heard by many travellers on 

 Mount Sinai near the Red Sea. One person with whom I 

 conversed had himself heard the noise; he described it as 

 very surprising ; and he distinctly stated, that although he 

 could not understand how it was effected, yet it was neces- 

 sary to set the sand rolling down the acclivity. I can 

 vouch for the quantity of loose sand lying on the bare granite 

 mountains in this neighbourhood. From the position of the 

 hill, and from the account which I received, the phenomenon 

 certainly does not appear to have any direct connexion with 

 volcanic causes. I may remark that a horse walking over 

 dry and coarse sand, causes a peculiar chirping noise from 

 the friction of the particles : a fact which I have several 

 times noticed on the coast of Brazil. 



Three days afterwards I heard of the Beagle's arrival at 



* Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, January, 1830, p. 74. Also, ano- 

 ther article in the number for April in the same year, p. 258. See also 

 Daubeny on Volcanoes, p. 438. 



