 8. Banda Oriental and Patagonia, Part 3 The zoology of Patagonia is as limited as its flora. On the arid plains a few black beetles, Heta Morera, might be seen slowly crawling about, and occasionally a lizard darted from side to side. Of birds we have three carrion hawks, and in the valleys a few finches and insect feeders. An ibis, the rusticus melanops, a species said to be found in Central Africa, is not uncommon on the most desert parts. In their stomachs I found grasshoppers, sicady, small lizards, and even scorpions. At one time of the year these birds go in flocks, at another in pairs. Their cry is very loud and singular, like the neighing of the guanaco. The guanaco, or wild llama, is the characteristic quadruped of the plains of Patagonia. It is the South American representative of the camel of the east. It is an elegant animal, in a state of nature, with a long slender neck and fine legs. It is very common over the whole of the temperate parts of the continent, as far south as the islands near Cape Horn. It generally lives in small herds, from half a dozen to thirty in each. But on the banks of St. Cruz we saw one herd, which must have contained at least five hundred. They are generally wild and extremely wary. Mr. Stokes told me that he one day saw through a glass a herd of these animals, which evidently had been frightened, and were running away at full speed, although their distance was so great that he could not distinguish them with his naked eye. The sportsman frequently receives the first notice of their presence by hearing, from a long distance, their peculiar shrill, neighing note of alarm. If he then looks attentively, he will probably see the herd standing in a line on the side of some distant hill. On approaching nearer, a few more squeals are given, and off they set, at an apparently slow but really quick canter, along some narrow beaten track, to a neighboring hill. If however, by chance, he abruptly meets a single animal or several together, they will generally stand motionless and intently gaze at him, then perhaps move on a few yards, turn round, and look again. What is the cause of this difference in their shyness? Do they mistake a man in the distance, for their chief enemy the Puma, or does curiosity overcome their timidity? That they are curious is certain. For if a person lies on the ground, and plays strange antics, such as throwing up his feet in the air, they will almost always approach, by degrees, to reconnoiter him. It was an artifice that was repeatedly practiced by our sportsman with success, and it had moreover the advantage of allowing several shots to be fired, which were all taken as part of the performance. On the mountains of Tierra del Fuego, I have more than once seen a guanaco on being approached, not only nay and squeal, but prance and leap about in the most ridiculous manner, apparently in defiance as a challenge. These animals are very easily domesticated, and I have seen some thus kept in northern Patagonia near a house, though not under any restraint. They are in this state very bold, and readily attack a man, by striking him from behind with both knees. It is asserted that the motive for these attacks is jealousy on account of their females. The wild guanacos, however, have no idea of defense, and even a single dog will secure one of these large animals till a huntsman can come up. In many of their habits, they are like sheep in a flock. Thus, when they see men approaching in several directions on horseback, they soon become bewildered, and know not which way to run. This greatly facilitates the Indian method of hunting, for they are thus easily driven to a central point and are encompassed. The guanacos readily take to the water. Several times at Port Valdez, they were seen swimming from island to island. Byron, in his voyage, says he saw them drinking salt water. Some of our officers likewise saw a herd apparently drinking the briny fluid from a salina near Cape Blanco. I imagine in several parts of the country, if they do not drink salt water, they drink none at all. In the middle of the day, they frequently roll on the dust in saucer-shaped hollows. The males fight together, two one day past quite close to me, squealing and trying to bite each other. And several were shot, with their hides deeply scored. Herds sometimes appear to set out on exploring parties. At Bihia Blanca, where within thirty miles of the coast, these animals are extremely unfrequent. I, one day, saw the traces of thirty or forty, which had come in a direct line to a muddy salt water creek. They must have perceived that they were approaching the sea, for they had wheeled with the regularity of cavalry, and had returned back in a straight line as they had advanced. The guanacos have one singular habit, which is to me quite inexplicable, namely that on successive days they dropped their dung in the same defined heap. I saw one of these heaps, which was eight feet in diameter, and was composed of a large quantity. This habit, according to M.A. to Orbingy, is common to all the species of the genus. It is very useful to the Peruvian Indians, who use the dung for fuel, and are thus saved the trouble of collecting it. The guanacos appear to have favored spots for lying down to die. On the banks of the St. Croose, in certain circumscribed spaces, they were generally bushy and all near the river. The ground was actually white with bones. On one such spot, I counted between ten and twenty heads. I particularly examined the bones. They did not appear as some scattered ones which I had seen, nod or broken, as if dragged together by beasts of prey. The animals in most cases must have crawled before dying. Beneath and amongst the bushes, Mr. Bino informs me that during a former voyage, he observed the same circumstances on the banks of the Rio Gallegos. I do not at all understand the reason of this, but I may observe that the wounded guanacos at the St. Croose invariably walked towards the river. At St. Jago in the Cape De Verde Islands, I remember having seen in a ravine a retired corner covered with bones of the goat. We at the time exclaimed that it was the burial ground of all the goats in the island. I mention these trifling circumstances, because in certain cases they might explain the occurrence of a number of uninjured bones in a cave, or buried under alluvial accumulations, and likewise the cause by certain animals are more commonly embedded than others in sedimentary deposits. One day the yall was sent under the command of Mr. Schaeffers, with three days provisions to survey the upper part of the harbor. In the morning we searched for some watering places mentioned in an old Spanish chart. We found one creek, at the head of which there was a trickling rill, the first we had seen, of brackish water. Here the tide compelled us to wait several hours, and in the interval I walked some miles to the interior. The plain, as usual, consisted of gravel, mingled with soil, resembling chalk and appearance, but very different from it in nature. From the softness of these materials it was worn away into many gullies. There was not a tree, and excepting the guanaco, which stood on the hilltop, a watched sentinel over its herd, scarcely an animal or a bird, all with stillness and desolation. Even passing over these scenes, without one bright object near, an ill-defined but strong sense of pleasure is vividly excited. One asked, how many ages the plain has thus lasted, and how many more it was doomed thus to continue. None can reply, all seems eternal now. The wilderness has a mysterious tongue which teaches awful doubt. In the evening we sailed a few miles further up, and then pitched the tents for the night. By the middle of the next day the yall was aground, and from the shoalness of the water could not proceed any higher. The water being found partly fresh, Mr. Shaffers took the dingy and went up two or three miles further, where she also grounded, but in a freshwater river. The water was muddy, and though the stream was most insignificant in size, it would be difficult to account for its origin, except from the melting snow on the Cordillera. At the spot where we bayouvacked, we were surrounded by bold cliffs and steep pinnacles of periphery. I do not think I ever saw a spot which appeared more secluded from the rest of the world than this rocky crevice in the wide plain. The second day after our return to the anchorage, a party of officers and myself went to ransack an old Indian grave which I had found on the summit of a neighboring hill. Two immense stones, each probably weighing at least a couple of tons, had been placed in front of a ledge of rock about six feet high. At the bottom of the grave, on the hard rock, there was a layer of earth about a foot deep which must have been brought up from the plain below. Above it, a pavement of flat stones was placed, on which others were piled, so as to fill up the space between the ledge and the two great blocks. To complete the grave, the Indians had contrived to detach from the ledge a huge fragment and to throw it over the pile so as to rest on the two blocks. We undermined the grave on both sides, but could not find any relics or even bones. The latter probably had decayed long since, in which case the grave must have been of extreme antiquity, for I found in another place some smaller heaps beneath which a very few crumbling fragments could yet be distinguished as having belonged to a man. Falconer states that where an Indian dies he is buried, but that subsequently his bones are carefully taken up and carried, let the distance be ever so great. To be deposited near the sea coast, this custom I think may be accounted for by recollecting that before the introduction of horses these Indians must have led nearly the same life as the Fugians now do and therefore generally have resided in the neighborhood of the sea. The common prejudice of lying where ones ancestors have lain would make the now roaming Indians bring the less perishable part of their dead to their ancient burial ground on the coast. January 9, 1834 Before it was dark, the beagle anchored in the fine spacious harbor of Port St. Julian situated about 110 miles to the south of Port Desire. We remained here eight days. The country is nearly similar to that of Port Desire, but perhaps more sterile. One day a party accompanied Captain Fritzroy on a long walk round the head of the harbor. We were eleven hours without tasting any water, and some of the party were quite exhausted. From the summit of the hill, since well named Thirsty Hill, a fine lake was spied, and two of the party proceeded with concerted signals to show whether it was fresh water. What was our disappointment to find a snow-white expanse of salt crystallized in great cubes? We attributed our extreme thirst to the dryness of the atmosphere, but whatever the cause might be, we were exceedingly glad late in the evening to get back to the boats. Although we could nowhere find, during our whole visit, a single drop of fresh water. Yet some must exist, for by an odd chance I found on the surface of the salt water near the bed of the bay a kalimba-tease not quite dead which must have lived in some not far distant pool. Three other insects, a cincedella, like hybrida, a cementus and harpalas, which all live on muddy flats occasionally overflowed by the sea, and one other found dead on the plain complete the list of the beetles. A good-sized fly, Tabanus, was extremely numerous and tormented us by its painful bite. The common horse fly, which is so troublesome in the shady lanes of England, belongs to this same genus. We here have the puzzle that so frequently occurs in the case of mosquitoes. On the blood of what animals do these insects commonly feed? The guanico is nearly the only warm-blooded quadruped, and it is found in quite inconsiderable numbers compared with a multitude of flies. The geology of Patagonia is interesting. Different from Europe, where the tertiary formations appear to have accumulated in bays, here along hundreds of miles of coast we have one great deposit, including many tertiary shells, all apparently extinct. The most common shell is a massive gigantic oyster, sometimes even a foot in diameter. These beds are covered by others of a peculiar soft white stone, including much gypsum and resembling chalk, but really of a pumacious nature. It is highly remarkable from being composed to at least one tenth of its bulk of infusoria. Professor Ehrenberg has already ascertained in it 30 oceanic forms. This bed extends for 500 miles along the coast, and probably for a considerable greater distance. At Port St. Julian, its thickness is more than 800 feet. These white beds are everywhere capped by a mass of gravel, forming probably one of the largest beds of shingle in the world. It certainly extends from near the Rio Colorado to between 600 and 700 nautical miles southward. At Santa Cruz, a river a little south of St. Julian, it reaches to the foot of the Cordillera, halfway up the river. Its thickness is more than 200 feet. It probably everywhere extends to this great chain, whence the well-rounded pebbles of porphyry have been derived. We may consider its average breadth at 200 miles and its average thickness at about 50 feet. This great bed of pebbles, without including the mud necessarily derived from the attrition, was piled into a mound. It would form a great mountain chain. When we consider that all these pebbles, countless as the grains of sand in the desert, have been derived from the snow falling in masses of rock on the old coastlines and banks of rivers, and that these fragments have been dashed into smaller pieces, and that each of them have since slowly been rolled, rounded, and far transported, the mind is stupefied in thinking over the long, absolutely necessary laps of years. Yet all this gravel has been transported and probably rounded subsequently to the deposition of the white beds, and logged subsequently to the underlying beds with tertiary shells. Everything in this southern continent has been affected on a grand scale. The land from the Rio Plata to Tierra del Fuego, a distance of 1,200 miles, has been raised in mass and in Patagonia to a height of between 300 and 400 feet within the period of the now existing seashells. The old and weathered shells left on the surface of the upraised plains still partially retain their colors. The uprising movement has been interrupted by at least eight long periods of rest, during which the sea ate deeply back into the land, forming at successive intervals the long lines of cliffs or escarpments which separate the different plains as they rise like steps one behind the other. The elevatory movement and the eating back power of the sea during the periods of rest have been equable over the long lines of the coast. For I was astonished to find that the step like plains stand at nearly corresponding heights at far distant points. The lowest plain is 90 feet high and the highest, which I ascended near the coast, is 950 feet. And of this only relics are left in the form of flat gravel capped hills. The upper plain of Santa Cruz slopes up to a height of 3,000 feet at the foot of the Cordillera. I have said that within the period of existing seashells Patagonia has been upraised 300 to 400 feet. I may add that within the period when icebergs transported boulders over the upper plain of Santa Cruz the elevation has been at least 1,500 feet. Nor has Patagonia been affected only by upward movements. The extinct tertiary shells from Port St. Julian and Santa Cruz cannot have lived, according to Professor E. Forbes, in a greater depth of water than from 40 to 250 feet. But they are now covered with sea-deposited strata from 800 to 1,000 feet in thickness. Hence the bed of the sea on which these shells once lived must have sunk downwards several hundred feet to allow of the accumulation of the super-encompassed strata. What a history of geological change that the simply constructed coast of Patagonia reveal. At Port St. Julian in some red mud capping the gravel on the 90 feet plain I found half the skeleton of the Macruchania Patagonia, a remarkable quadruped, full as large as a camel. It belongs to the same division as the Pachydermata with the rhinoceros, tapir, and paleoetherium. But in the structure of the bones of its long neck it shows a clear relation to the camel or rather to the guanaco and llama. From recent seashells being formed on two of the higher stepped formed plains which must have been modeled and upraised before the mud was deposited in which the Macruchania was entombed, it is certain that this curious quadruped lived long after the sea was inhabited by its present shells. I was at first much surprised how a large quadruped could so lately have subsisted in latitude 49 degrees 15 minutes on these wretched gravel plains with their stunted vegetation. But the relationship of the Macruchania to the guanaco, now an inhabitant of the most sterile parts, partly explains this difficulty. The relationship, though distant, between the Macruchania and the guanaco, between the Toxodon and the Capibera, the closer relationship, the many extinct Edentata and the living sloths, ant-eaters, and armadillos, now so eminently characteristic of South American zoology, and the still closer relationship between the fossil and living species of the sedomies and hydrocarus are most interesting facts. This relationship is shown wonderfully as wonderfully as between the fossil and extinct marsupial animals of Australia by the great collections lately brought to Europe from the caves of Brazil by M.M. Lund and Clausen. In this collection, there are extinct species of all the 32 genera accepting four of the terrestrial quadrupeds now inhabiting the provinces in which the caves occur. And the extinct species are much more numerous than those now living. There are fossil ant-eaters, armadillos, tapirs, peccaries, guanacos, opossums, and numerous South American gnaws and monkeys, and other animals. This wonderful relationship in the same continent between the dead and the living will, I do not doubt, hereafter throw more light on the appearance of organic beings on our earth and their disappearance from it than any other class of facts. It is impossible to reflect on the changed state of the American continent without the deepest astonishment. Formerly it must have swarmed with great monsters now we find mere pygmies compared with the antecedent allied races. If Buffon had known of the gigantic sloth and armadillo-like animals and of the last Pachydermata, he might have said with a greater semblance of truth than the creative force in America had lost its power rather than it had never possessed great vigor. The greater number, if not all, of these extinct quadrupeds lived at a late period and were the contemporaries of most of the existing seashells. Since they lived, no very great change in the form of the land can have taken place. What then has exterminated so many species and whole genera? The mind at first is irresistibly hurried into the belief of some great catastrophe, but thus to destroy animals, both large and small, in southern Patagonia in Brazil, on the Cordillera of Peru, in North America up to Bering Straits, we must shake the entire framework of the globe and examination, moreover, of the geology of La Plata on Patagonia leads to the belief that all the features of the land result from slow and gradual change. It appears from the character of the fossils in Europe, Asia, Australia, and in North and South America that these conditions, which favor the life of the larger quadrupeds, were lately co-extensive with the world. What those conditions were, no one has yet even conjectured. It could hardly have been a change of temperature, which at about the same time destroyed the inhabitants of tropical, temperate, and Arctic latitudes on both sides of the globe. In North America, we positively know from Mr. Lyle that the large quadrupeds lived subsequently to that period when boulders were brought into latitudes at which icebergs now never arrive. From conclusive but indirect reasons, we may feel sure that in the southern hemisphere the Macrochania also lived long subsequently to the ice-transporting boulder period. Did man, after his first inroad into South America, destroy, as has been suggested, the unwieldy Megatherium and the other Edentata? We must at least look into some other cause for the destruction of the little Tucatucco at Bahia Blanca and of the many fossil mice and other small quadrupeds in Brazil. No one will imagine that a drought, even far severer than those which caused such losses in the provinces of La Plata, could destroy every individual of every species from Southern Patagonia to Bering Straits. What shall we say of the extinction of the horse? Did those plains fail of pasture, which have since been overrun by thousands and hundreds of thousands of the descendants of the stock introduced by the Spaniards? Have the subsequently introduced species consumed the food of the great antisentant races? Can we believe that the Capybara has taken the food of the Toxodon, the Goanaco of the Macrochania, the existing small Edentata of their numerous gigantic prototypes? Certainly, no fact in the long history of the world is so startling as the wide and repeated exterminations of its inhabitants. Nevertheless, if we consider the subject under another point of view, it will appear less perplexing. We do not steadily bear in mind how profoundly ignorant we are of the conditions of existence of every animal, nor do we always remember that some check is constantly preventing the too rapid increase of every organized being left in a state of nature. The supply of food on average remains constant, yet the tendency in every animal to increase by propagation is geometrical, and its surprising effects have nowhere been more astonishingly shown than in the case of the European animals run wild during the last few centuries in America. Every animal in a state of nature regularly breeds, yet in a species long established, any great increase in numbers is obviously impossible and must be checked by some means. We are nevertheless seldom able with certainty to tell in any given species at which period of life or at what period of the year or whether only at long intervals the check fails or again, what is the precise nature of the check? Hence probably it is that we feel so little surprise at one of two species closely allied in habits, being rare and the other abundant in the same district, or again, that one should be abundant in one district and another, filling the same place in the economy of nature, should be abundant in a neighboring district, differing very little in its conditions. If asked how this is, one immediately replies that it is determined by some slight difference in climate, food, or the number of enemies, yet how rarely, if ever, can we point out the precise cause and manner of action of the check? We are therefore driven to the conclusion that the causes generally quite inappreciable by us determine whether a given species shall be abundant or scanty in numbers. In the cases where we can trace the extinction of a species through man, either wholly or in one limited district, we know that it becomes a rarer and rarer and is then lost. It would be difficult to point out any just distinction between a species destroyed by man or by the increase of its natural enemies. The evidence of rarity preceding extinction is more striking in the successive tertiary strata as remarked by several able observers. It has often been found that a shell very common in a tertiary stratum is now most rare and has even long been thought extinct. If then, as appears probable, species first become rare and then extinct. If the too rapid increase of every species, even the most favored, is steadily checked, as we must admit, though how and when it is hard to say. And if we see without the smallest surprise, although unable to assign the precise reason, one species abundant and another closely allied species rare in the same district, why should we feel such great astonishment at the rarity being carried one step further to extinction? An action going on on every side of us and yet barely appreciable must surely be carried a little further without exciting our observation. Who would feel any great surprise at hearing that the megalonics was formerly rare, compared with a megatherium? Or that one of the fossil monkeys was few in number, compared with one of the now living monkeys? And yet in this comparative rarity, we should have the plainest evidence of less favorable conditions for their existence. To admit that species generally become rare before they become extinct, to feel no surprise at the comparative rarity of one species with another, and yet to call in some extraordinary agent to marvel greatly when a species ceases to exist, appears to me much the same as to admit that sickness in the individual is the prelude to death, to feel no surprise at sickness, but when the sick man dies to wonder and to believe that he died through violence. End of chapter eight. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin. Chapter nine, Santa Cruz, Patagonia and the Falkland Islands. Contents, Santa Cruz, Expedition of the River. Indians, immense streams of basaltic lava. Fragments not transported by the river. Excavations of the valley, condor, habits of cordillera. Erratic boulders of great size. Indian relics, return to the ship. Falkland Islands, wild horses, cattle, rabbits. Wolf-like fox, fire made of bones. Manor of hunting wild cattle. Geology, streams of stones. Scenes of violence. Penguins, geese, eggs of Doris. Compound animals. Part one, April 13th, 1834. The Beagle anchored within the mouth of the Santa Cruz. This river is situated about 60 miles south of Port St. Julian. During the last voyage, Captain Stokes proceeded 30 miles up it. But then, from the want of provisions, was obliged to return. Accepting what was discovered at the time, scarcely anything was known about this large river. Captain Fritschroy now determined to follow its course as far as time would allow. On the 18th, three whale boats started, carrying three weeks' provisions, and the party consisted of 25 souls, a force which would have been sufficient to have defied a host of Indians. With a strong flood tide and a fine day, we made a good run. Soon drank some of the fresh water and were at night nearly above the tidal influence. The river here assumed a size and appearance, which even at the highest point we ultimately reached, was scarcely diminished. It was generally from three to 400 yards broad and in the middle, about 17 feet deep. The rapidity of the current, which in its whole course runs at the rate of from four to six knots an hour, is perhaps its most remarkable feature. The water is of a fine blue color, but with a slight milky tinge, and not so transparent as at first sight would have been expected. It flows over a bed of pebbles, like those which compose the beach and the surrounding plains. It runs in a winding course through a valley, which extends in a direct line westward. This valley varies from five to 10 miles in breadth. It is bounded by stepped form terraces, which rise in most parts, one above the other to the height of 500 feet, and have on the opposite sides a remarkable correspondence. April 19th, against so strong a current, it was of course quite impossible to row or sail. Consequently, the three boats were fastened together head and stern. Two hands left in each, and the rest came on shore to track. As the general arrangements made by Captain Fritzroy were very good for facilitating the work of all, and as all had to share in it, I will describe the system. The party, including everyone, was divided into two spells, each of which hauled at the tracking line alternately for an hour and a half. The officers of each boat lived with, ate the same food, and slept in the same tent with their crew, so that each boat was quite independent of the others. After sunset, the first level spot where any bushes were growing was chosen for our night's lodging. Each of the crew took it in turns to be cooked. Immediately the boat was hauled up, the cook made his fire, two others pitched the tent, the coxswain handed the things out of the boat, the rest carried them up to the tents and collected firewood. By this order, in half an hour, everything was ready for the night. A watch of two men and an officer was always kept, whose duty it was to look after the boats, keep up the fire, and guard against Indians. Each in the party had his one hour every night. During this day, we tracked but a short distance. For there were many islets, covered by thorny bushes, and the channels between them were narrow. April 20th, we passed the islands and set to work. Our regular day's march, although it was hard enough, carried us on average only 10 miles in a straight line, and perhaps 15 or 20 all together. Beyond the place where we slept last night, the country is completely terra incognita, for it was there that Captain Stokes turned back. We saw in the distance a great smoke and found the skeleton of a horse, so we knew that Indians were in the neighborhood. On the next morning, the 21st, tracks of a party of horse and marks left by the trailing of a schizos, or long spears, were observed on the ground. It was generally thought that the Indians had reconnoitred us during the night. Shortly afterwards, we came to a spot where, from the fresh footsteps of men, children, and horses, it was evident that the party had crossed the river. April 22nd, the country remained the same and was extremely uninteresting. The complete similarity of the productions throughout Patagonia is one of its most striking characters. The level planes of arid shingle support the same stunted and dwarf plants, and in the valleys the same thorn-bearing bushes grow. Everywhere we see the same birds and insects. Even the very banks of the river and the clear streamlets which entered it are scarcely enlivened by a brighter tint of green. The curse of sterility is on the land and the water flowing over a bed of pebbles partakes of the same curse. Hence the number of waterfowls is very scanty, for there is nothing to support life in the stream of this barren river. Patagonia, poor as she is in some respects, can however boast of a greater stock of small rodents than perhaps any other country in the world. Several species of mice are externally characterized by large, thin ears and a very fine fur. These little animals swarm amongst the thickets in the valleys where they cannot for months together taste a drop of water accepting the dew. They all seem to be cannibals, for no sooner was a mouse caught in one of my traps that it was devoured by others. A small and delicately shaped fox, which is likewise very abundant, probably derives its entire support from these small animals. The guanico is also in its proper district. Herds of fifty or a hundred were common, and as I have stated, we saw one which must have contained at least five hundred. The puma, with the condor and other carrion hawks in its train, follows and prays upon these animals. The footsteps of the puma were to be seen almost everywhere on the banks of the river, and the remains of several guanicoes with their necks dislocated and bones broken showed how they had met their death. April 24th, like the navigators of old when approaching an unknown land, we examined and watched for the most trivial sign of a change. The drifted trunk of a tree, or a boulder of primitive rock, was hailed with joy, as if we had seen a forest growing on the flanks of the cordillera. The top, however, of a heavy bank of clouds, which remained almost constantly in one position, was the most promising sign, and eventually turned out a true harbinger. At first the clouds were mistaken for the mountains themselves, instead of the masses of vapor condensed by their icy summits. April 26th, we this day met with a marked change in the geological structure of the plains. From the first starting, I carefully examined the gravel in the river, and for the last two days had noticed the presence of a few small pebbles of a very cellular basalt. These gradually increased in number and in size, but none were as large as a man's head. This morning, however, pebbles of the same rock, but more compact, suddenly became abundant, and in the course of half an hour, we saw at the distance of five of six miles the angular edge of a great basaltic platform. When we arrived at its base, we found the stream bubbling among the fallen blocks. For the next 28 miles, the river course was encumbered with these basaltic masses. Above that limit, immense fragments of primitive rocks derived from its surrounding boulder formation were equally numerous. None of the fragments of any considerable size had been washed more than three or four miles down the river below their parent's source. Considering the singular rapidity of the great body of water in the Santa Cruz and that no still reaches occur in any part, this example is the most striking one of the inefficiency of rivers in transporting even moderately sized fragments. The basalt is only lava, which is flown beneath the sea, but the eruptions must have been on the grandest scale. At the point where we first met this formation, it was 120 feet in thickness. Following up the river course, the surface imperceptibly rose and the mass became thicker so that at 40 miles above the first station, it was 320 feet thick. What the thickness may be close to the cordillera, I have no means of knowing, but the platform there attains a height of about 3,000 feet above the level of the sea. We must therefore look to the mountains of the great chain for its source. And worthy of such a source are streams that have flowed over the gently inclined bed of the sea to a distance of 100 miles. At first glance of the basaltic cliffs on the opposite sides of the valley, it was evident that the strata once were united. What power then has removed a whole line of country, a solid mass of very hard rock, which had an average thickness of nearly 300 feet and a breadth varying from rather less than two miles to four miles. The river, though it has so little power and transporting even inconsiderable fragments, yet the lapse of ages might produce by its gradual erosion an effect of which it is difficult to judge the amount. But in this case, independently of the insignificance of such an agency, good reasons can be assigned for believing that this valley was formerly occupied by an arm of the sea. It is needless in this work to detail the arguments leading to this conclusion derived from the form and the nature of the stepped-form terraces on both sides of the valley, from the manner in which the bottom of the valley near the Andes expands into a great estuary-like plain with sand hillocks on it, and from the occurrence of a few seashells lying in the bed of the river. If I had space, I could prove that South America was formerly here, cut off by a strait, joining the Atlantic and Pacific oceans like that of Magellan. But it may yet be asked, how has the solid basalt been moved? Geologists formerly would have brought into play the violent actions of some overwhelming debacle. But in this case, such as opposition would have been quite inadmissible because the same steplike planes with existing seashells lying on their surface, which front the long line of the Patagonian coast sweep up on each side of the valley of the Santa Cruz. No possible action of any flood could thus have modeled the land, either within the valley or along the open coast. And by the formation of such steplike planes or terraces, the valley itself had been hollowed out. Although we know that there are tides which run within the narrows of the Strait of Magellan at the rate of eight knots an hour, yet we must confess that it makes the head almost giddy to reflect on the number of years, century after century, which the tides, unaided by a heavy surf, must have required to have corroded so vast an area and thickness of solid basaltic lava. Nevertheless, we must believe that the strata undermined by the waters of this ancient Strait were broken up into huge fragments and these lines scattered on the beach were reduced first to smaller blocks, then to pebbles and lastly to the most impalpable mud, which the tides drifted far into the eastern and western oceans. With the change in the geological structure of the planes, the character of the landscape likewise altered. While rambling up some of the narrow and rocky defiles, I could almost have fancied myself transported back again to the barren valleys of the island of St. Jago. Among the basaltic cliffs, I found some plants which I had seen nowhere else, but others I recognized as being wanderers from Tierra del Fuego. These porous rocks serve as a reservoir for the scanty rainwater and consequently, on the line where the igneous and sedimentary formations unite, some small springs, most rare occurrences in Patagonia burst forth and they could be distinguished at a distance by the circumscribed patches of bright green herbage. April 27th, the bed of the river became narrower and hence the stream more rapid. It here ran at the rate of six knots an hour. From this cause and from the many great angular fragments, tracking the boats became both dangerous and laborious. This day I shot a condor. It measured from tip to tip of the wings eight and a half feet and from beak to tail four feet. This bird is known to have a wide geographical range being found on the west coast of South America from the Straits of Magellan along the Cordillera as far as eight degrees north of the equator. The steep cliff near the mouth of the Rio Negro is its northern limit on the Patagonian coast and they have there wandered about 400 miles from the great central line of their habitation in the Andes. Further south among the bold precipices at the head of Port Desire, the condor is not uncommon yet only a few stragglers occasionally visit the sea coast. A line of cliff near the mouth of the Santa Cruz is frequented by these birds and about 80 miles up the river where the sides of the valley are formed by steep ascetic precipices, the condor reappears. From these facts it seems that the condors require perpendicular cliffs. In Chile they haunt during the greater part of the year the lower country near the shores of the Pacific and at night several roost together in one tree but in the early part of summer they retire to the most inaccessible parts of the inner Cordillera there to breed in peace. With respect to their propagation I was told by the country people in Chile that the condor makes no sort of nest but in the months of November and December lays two large white eggs on a shelf of bear rock. It is said that the young condors cannot fly for an entire year and long after they are able they continue to roost by night and hunt by day with their parents. The old birds generally live in pairs but among the inland basaltic cliffs of the Santa Cruz I found a spot where scores must usually haunt. Uncoming suddenly to the brow of the precipice it was a grand spectacle to see between 20 or 30 of these great birds start heavily from their resting place and wheel away in majestic circles. From the quantity of dung on the rocks they must long have frequented this cliff for roosting and breeding. Having gorged themselves with carrion on the plains below they retire to these favorite ledges to digest their food. From these fax the condor like the galanazo must to a certain degree be considered a gregarious bird. In this part of the country they live altogether on the guanicos which have died a natural death or as more commonly happens have been killed by the pumas. I believe from what I saw in Patagonia that they do not on ordinary occasions extend their daily excursions to any great distance from their regular sleeping places. The condors may often time to be seen at a great height soaring over a certain spot in the most graceful circles. On some occasions I am sure that they do this only for pleasure but on others the shileno countrymen tells you that they are watching a dying animal or the puma devouring its prey. If the condors glide down and then suddenly all rise together the shileno knows that it is the puma which watching the carcass has sprung out to drive away the robbers. Besides feeding on carrion the condors frequently attack young goats and lambs and the shepherd dogs are trained whenever they pass over to run out and looking upwards to bark violently. The shilenos destroy and catch numbers. Two methods are used. One is to place a carcass on a level piece of ground within an enclosure of sticks with an opening and when the condors are gorged to gallop on horseback to the entrance and thus enclose them. For when the bird has not space to run it cannot give its body sufficient momentum to rise from the ground. The second method is to mark the trees in which frequently to the number of five or six together they roost and they at night to climb up and noose them. They are such heaved sleepers as I myself witnessed that this is not a difficult task. At Valparaiso I have seen a living condor sold for six pence but the common price is eight or 10 shillings. One which I saw brought in had been tied with rope and was much injured. Yet the moment the line was cut by which its bill was secured although surrounded by people it began ravenously to tear a piece of carrion. In a garden at the same place between 20 and 30 were kept alive. They were fed only once a week but they appeared in pretty good health. The shilleno countrymen assert that the condor will live and retain its vigor between five and six weeks without eating. I cannot answer for the truth of this but it is a cruel experiment which very likely has been tried. When an animal is killed in the country it is well known that the condors like other carrion vultures soon gain intelligence of it and congregate in an inexplicable manner. In most cases it must not be overlooked that the birds have discovered their prey and have picked the skeleton clean before the flesh is in the least degree tainted. Remembering the experiments of M. Audubon on the little smelling powers of carrion hawks I tried in the above mentioned garden the following experiment. The condors were tied each by a rope in a long row at the bottom of a wall and having folded up a piece of meat in white paper I walked backwards and forwards carrying it in my hand at the distance of about three yards from them but no notice whatever was taken. I then threw it on the ground within one yard of an old male bird. He looked at it for a moment with attention but then regarded it no more. With a stick I pushed it closer and closer until at last he touched it with his beak. The paper was then instantly torn off with fury and at the same moment every bird in the long row began struggling and flapping its wings. Under the same circumstances it would have been quite impossible to have deceived a dog. The evidence in favor of and against the acute smelling powers of carrion vultures is singularly balanced. Professor Owen has demonstrated that the olfactory nerves of the turkey buzzard, Cathardy's aura, are highly developed and on the evening when Mr. Owen's paper was read at the Zoological Society it was mentioned by a gentleman that he had seen the carrion hawks in the West Indies on two occasions collect on the roof of a house when a corpse had become offensive from not having been buried. In this case the intelligence could hardly have been acquired by sight. On the other hand besides the experiments of Audubon and that one by myself Mr. Bachman has tried in the United States many varied plans showing that neither the turkey buzzard the species dissected by Professor Owen nor the galanazo find their food by smell. He covered portions of highly offensive oval with a thin canvas cloth and strewed pieces of meat on it. These the carrion vultures ate up and then remained quietly standing with their beaks within the eighth of an inch of the putrid mass without discovering it. A small rent was made in the canvas and the oval was immediately discovered. The canvas was replaced by a fresh piece and meat again was put on it and was again devoured by the vultures without their discovering the hidden mass on which they were trampling. These facts are attested by the signatures of six gentlemen besides that of Mr. Bachman. Often when lying down to rest on the open plains on looking upwards I have seen carrion hawks sailing through the air at a great height. Where the country is level I do not believe a space of the heavens of more than 15 degrees above the horizon is commonly viewed with any attention by a person either walking or on horseback. If such be the case and the vulture is on the wing at a height of between three and 4,000 feet before it could come within the range of vision its distance in a straight line from the beholder's eye would be rather more than two British miles. Might it not thus readily be overlooked? When an animal is killed by the sportsman in a lonely valley may he not all the while be watched from above by the sharp-sighted bird and will not the manner of its descent proclaim throughout the district to the whole family of carrion feeders that their prey is at hand. When the condors are wheeling in a flock round and round any spot their flight is beautiful except when rising from the ground I do not recollect ever having seen one of these birds flap its wings. Near Lima I watched several for nearly half an hour without ones taking off my eyes. They moved in large curves sweeping in circles descending and ascending without giving a simple flap. As they glided close over my head I intently watched from an oblique position the outlines of the separate and great terminal feathers of each wing and the separate feathers if there had been the least vibratory movement would have appeared as if blended together but they were seen distinct against the blue sky. The head and neck were moved frequently and apparently with force and the extended wings seemed to form the fulcrum on which the movement of the neck, body and tail acted. If the bird wished to descend the wings were for a moment collapsed and when again expanded with an altered inclination the momentum gained by the rapid descent seemed to urge the bird upwards with the even and steady movement of a paper kite. In the case of any bird soaring its motion must be sufficiently rapid so that the action of the inclined surface of its body on the atmosphere may counterbalance its gravity. The force to keep up the momentum of a body moving in a horizontal plane in the air in which there is so little friction cannot be great and this force is all that is wanted. The movements of the neck and body of the condor we must suppose is sufficient for this. However this may be it is truly wonderful and beautiful to see so great a bird hour after hour without any apparent exertion wheeling and gliding over mountain and river. April 29th from some high land we hailed with joy the white summits of the Cordillera as they were seen occasionally peeping through their dusky envelope of clouds. During the few succeeding days we continued to get on slowly for we found the river course very torturous and strewn with immense fragments of various ancient slate rocks and of granite. The plane bordering the valley has here attained an elevation of about 1100 feet above the river and its character was much altered. The well rounded pebbles of periphery were mingled with many immense angular fragments of basalt and of primary rocks. The first of these erratic boulders which I noticed was 67 miles distant from the nearest mountain. Another which I measured was five yards square and projected five feet above the gravel. Its edges were so angular and its size so great that I at first mistook it for a rock in situ and took out my compass to observe the direction of its cleavage. The plane here was not quite so level as that nearer the coast but yet it betrayed no signs of any great violence. Under these circumstances it is I believe quite impossible to explain the transportal of these gigantic masses of rock so many miles from their parent source on any theory except by that of floating icebergs. During the last two days we met with signs of horses and with several small articles which had belonged to the Indians such as parts of a mantle and a bunch of ostrich feathers but they appeared to have been lying long on the ground. Between the place where the Indians had so lately crossed the river and this neighborhood though so many miles apart the country appears to be quite unfrequented. At first considering the abundance of the Guanacos I was surprised at this but it is explained by the stony nature of the planes which would soon disable an unshot horse from taking any part in the chase. Nevertheless in two places in this very central region I found small heaps of stones which I do not think could have been accidentally thrown together. They were placed on points projecting over the edge of the highest lava cliff and they resembled but on a small scale those near port desire. May 4th, Captain Fritzroy determined to take the boats no higher. The river had a winding course and was very rapid and the appearance of country offered no temptation to proceed any further. Everywhere we met with the same productions and the same dreary landscape. We were now 140 miles distant from the Atlantic and about 60 from the nearest arm of the Pacific. The valley in this upper part expanded into a wide basin bounded on the north and south by the basaltic platforms and fronted by the long range of the snow clad Cordillera but we viewed these ground mountains with regret for we were obliged to imagine their nature and productions instead of standing as we had hoped on their summits. Besides the useless loss of time which an attempt to ascend the river and higher would have cost us we had already been for some days on half allowance of bread. This although really enough for a reasonable man was after a hard day's march rather scanty food. A light stomach and an easy digestion are good things to talk about but very unpleasant in practice. Fifth, before sunrise we commenced our descent. We shot down the stream with great rapidity generally at the rate of 10 knots an hour. In this one day we affected what had cost us five and a half hard days labor in ascending. On the eighth we reached the beagle after our 21 days expedition. Everyone excepting myself had caused to be dissatisfied but to me the ascent affronted a most interesting section of the great tertiary formation of Patagonia. On March 1st, 1833 and again on March 16th, 1834 the beagle anchored in Berkeley Sound in East Falkland Island. This archipelago is situated in nearly the same latitude with the mouth of the Strait of Magellan. It covers a space of 120 by 60 geographical miles and is little more than half the size of Ireland. After the possession of these miserable islands had been contested by France, Spain and England they were left uninhabited. The government of Buenos Aires then sold them to a private individual but likewise used them as old Spain had done before for a penal settlement. England claimed to right and seized them. The Englishman who was left in charge of the flag was consequently murdered. A British officer was next sent and supported by any power. And when we arrived we found him in charge of a population of which rather more than half were runaway rebels and murderers. The theater is worthy of the scenes acted on it. An undulating land with a desolate and wretched aspect is everywhere covered by a peaty soil of wiry grass of one monotonous brown color. Here and there a peak or ridge of great quartz rock breaks through the smooth surface. Everyone has heard of the climate of these regions. It may be compared to that which is experienced at the height of between one and 2000 feet on the mountains of North Wales. Having however less sunshine and less frost but more wind and rain. End of chapter nine, part one. Chapter nine, part two of the voyage of the Beagle. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Shubhda Garani. The voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin. Chapter nine, part two. Santa Cruz, Patagonia and the Falkland Islands. 16th, I will now describe a short excursion which made round a part of this island. In the morning, I started with six horses and two gotchos. The latter were capital men for the purpose and well accustomed to living on their own resources. The weather was very boisterous and cold with heavy hailstorms. We got on however pretty well but except the geology, nothing could be less interesting than our day's ride. The country is uniformly the same undulating moorland. The surface being covered by light brown withered grass and a few very small shrubs all springing out of an elastic PD soil. In the valleys here and there might be seen a small flock of wild geese and everywhere the ground was so soft that the snipe were able to feed. Besides these two birds, there were few others. There is one main range of hills, nearly 2,000 feet in height and composed of quartz rock that rugged and barren crests of which gave us some trouble to cross. On the south side, we came to the best country for wild cattle. We met however no great number for they had been lately much harassed. In the evening, we came across a small herd. One of my companions in Jago by name soon separated a fat cow. He threw the bolas and it struck her legs but failed in becoming entangled. Then, dropping his hat to mark the spot where the balls were left, while at full gallop, he uncoiled his lasso and after a most severe chase, again came up to the cow and caught her around the horns. The other gocho had gone on ahead with the spare horses so that St. Jago had some difficulty in killing the furious beast. He managed to get her on a level piece of ground by taking advantage of her as often as she rushed at him and when she would not move, my horse from having been trained would canter up and with his chest give her a violent push. But when on level ground, it does not appear an easy job for one man to kill a beast mad with terror. Nor would it be so if the horse, when left to itself without its rider, did not soon learn for its own safety to keep the lasso tight so that if the cow or ox moves forward, the horse moves just as quickly forward. Otherwise, it stands motionless, leaning on one side. This horse, however, was a young one and would not stand still but gave in to the cow as she struggled. It was admirable to see with what dexterity St. Jago dodged behind the beast till at last he contrived to give the fatal touch to the main tendon of the hind leg, after which, without much difficulty, he drove his knife into the head of the spinal marrow and the cow dropped as if struck by lightning. He cut off pieces of flesh with the skin to it but without any bones, sufficient for our expedition. We then drove on to our sleeping place and had for supper, carne con chiaro or meat roasted with the skin on it. This is as superior to common beef as venison is to mutton. A large circular piece taken from the back is roasted on the embers with the hide downwards and is in the form of a saucer so that none of the gravy is lost. If any worthy elder men had supped with us that evening, carne con chiaro, without doubt, would soon have been celebrated in London. During the night, it rained and the next day, 17th, was very stormy with much hail and snow. We rode across the island to the neck of land which joins the Rincon del Toro, the great peninsula at the southwest extremity to the rest of the island. From the great number of cows which have been killed, there is a large proportion of bulls. These wander about single or two and three together and are very savage. I never saw such magnificent beasts. They equaled in the size of their huge heads and necks, the Grecian marble sculptures. Captain Sullivan informs me that the height of an average sized bull weighs 47 pounds whereas the height of this weight, less thoroughly dried, is considered as a very heavy one at Montevideo. The young bulls generally run away for a short distance but the old ones do not stir a step except to rush at man and horse and many horses have been thus killed. An old bull crossed a boggy stream and took his stand on the opposite side to us. We in vain tried to drive him away and failing were obliged to make a larger circuit. The Gauchos in revenge determined to emasculate him and render him for the future harmless. It was very interesting to see how art completely mastered force. One lasso was thrown over his horns as he rushed at the horse and another round his hind legs. In a minute the monster was stretched powerless on the ground. After the lasso has once been drawn tightly around the horns of a furious animal, it does not at first appear an easy thing to disengage it again without killing the beast, nor I apprehend would it be so if the man was by himself. By the aid, however, of a second person throwing his lasso so as to catch both hind legs it is quickly managed for the animal as long as its hind legs are kept outstretched is quite helpless and the first man can with his hands loosen his lasso from the horns and then quietly mount his horse but the moment the second man by backing ever so little relaxes the strain the lasso slips off the legs of the struggling beast which then rises free, shakes himself and vainly rushes at his antagonist. During our whole ride we saw only one troop of wild horses. These animals as well as the cattle were introduced by the French in 1764 since which time both have greatly increased. It is a curious fact that the horses have never left the eastern end of the island although there is no natural boundary to prevent them from roaming and that part of the island is not more tempting than the rest. The Gajos whom I asked though asserting this to be the case were unable to account for it except from the strong attachment which horses have to any locality to which they are accustomed. Considering that the island does not appear fully stocked and that there are no beasts of prey I was particularly curious to know what has checked their originally rapid increase. That in a limited island some check would sooner or later supervene is inevitable but why had the increase of the horse been checked sooner than that of the cattle? Captain Sullivan has taken much pains for me in this inquiry. The Gajos employed here attributed chiefly to the stallions constantly roaming from place to place and compelling the mares to accompany them whether or not the young foals are able to follow. One Gajo told Captain Sullivan that he watched a stallion for a whole hour violently kicking and biting a mare till he forced her to leave her foal to its fate. Captain Sullivan can so far corroborate this curious account that he has several times found young foals dead whereas he has never found a dead calf. Moreover, the dead bodies of full grown horses are more frequently found as if more subject to disease or accidents than those of the cattle. From the softness of the ground their hooves often grow irregularly to a great length and this causes lameness. The predominant colors are ron and iron gray. All the horses bred here, both tame and wild, are rather small sized though generally in good condition and they have lost so much strength that they are unfit to be used in taking wild cattle with the lasso. In consequence, it is necessary to go to the great expense of importing fresh horses from the platter. At some future period, the southern hemisphere probably will have its breed of Falkland ponies as the northern has its Shetland breed. The cattle instead of having degenerated like the horses seem as before remarked to have increased in size and they are much more numerous than the horses. Captain Sullivan informs me that they vary much less in the general form of their bodies and in the shape of their horns than English cattle. In color, they differ much and it is a remarkable circumstance that in different parts of this one small island, different colors predominate. Around Mount Osborne, at a height of from 1000 to 15,000 feet above the sea, about half of some of the herds are mouse or lead colored, a tint of which is not common in other parts of the island. Near Port Pleasant, dark brown prevails, whereas south of Choisel Sound, which almost divides the island into two parts, white beasts with black heads and feet are the most common. In all parts, black and some spotted animals may be observed. Captain Sullivan remarks that the difference in the prevailing colors was so obvious that in looking for the herds near Port Pleasant, they appeared from a long distance like black spots. Whilst south of Choisel Sound, they appeared like white spots on the hillsides. Captain Sullivan thinks that the herds do not mingle and it is a singular fact that the mouse-colored cattle, though living on Highland, cove about a month earlier in the season than the other colored beasts on the lower land. It is interesting thus to find the once domesticated cattle breaking into three colors of which some one color would in all probability ultimately prevail over the others if the herds were left undisturbed for the next several centuries. The rabbit is another animal which has been introduced and has succeeded very well so that they abound over large parts of the island. Yet, like the horses, they are confined within certain limits, for they have not crossed the central chain of hills, nor would they have extended even so far as its base if, as the Gauchos informed me, small colonies has not been carried there. I should not have supposed that these animals, natives of Northern Africa, could have existed in a climate so humid as this, and which enjoys so little sunshine that even wheat ripens only occasionally. It is asserted that in Sweden, which anyone would have thought a more favorable climate, the rabbit cannot live out of doors. The first few pairs, moreover, had here to contend against pre-existing enemies in the fox and some large hawks. The French naturalists have considered the black variety a distinct species, and called it Lepus majolanicus. Big and footnote. Lessons, Zoology of the Voyage of the Cockail Tom, I, page 168. All the early voyagers, and especially Bougainville, distinctly state that the wolf-like fox was the only native animal on the island. The distinction of the rabbit as a species is taken from peculiarities in the fur, from the shape of the head, and from the shortness of the ears. I may here observe that the difference between the Irish and the English hair rests upon nearly similar characters, only more strongly marked. And footnote. They imagined that Magellan, when talking of an animal under the name conny house in the Strait of Magellan, referred to the species. But he was alluding to a small cave, which to this day is thus called by the Spaniards. The Gauchos laughed at the idea of the black kind being different from the gray, and they said that at all events, it had not extended its range any further than the gray kind. That the two were never found separate, and that they readily bred together and produced piebald offspring. Of the latter, I now possess a specimen, and it is marked about the head differently from the French specific description. This circumstance shows how cautious naturalists should be in making species. For even Cuvier, on looking at the skull of one of these rabbits, thought it was probably distinct. The only quadruped native to the island is a large wolf-like fox, canis and tarticus, which is common to both East and West Falkland. Begin footnote. I have reason, however, to suspect that there is a field mouse. The common European rat and mouse have roamed far from the habitations of the settlers. The common hog has also run wild on one islet. All are of black color, the boars are very fierce, and have great trunks. End footnote. I have no doubt it is a peculiar species and confined to this archipelago, because many sealers, Gauchos and Indians, who have visited these islands, all maintain that no such animal is found in any part of South America. Molina, from a similarity in habits, thought that this was the same with the Sculpey. But I have seen both, and they are quite distinct. Begin footnote. The Sculpey is the canis majolanicus brought home by Captain King from the Strait of Magellan. It is common in Chile. End footnote. These wolves are well known from Byron's account of their tameness and curiosity, which the sailors, who ran into the water to avoid them, mistook for fierceness. To this day, their manners remain the same. They have been observed to enter a tent, and actually pull some meat from beneath the head of a sleeping seaman. The Gauchos also have frequently in the evening killed them by holding out a piece of meat in one hand, and in the other, a knife ready to stick them. As far as I am aware, there is no other instance in any part of the world of so small a mass of broken land, distant from a continent, possessing so large an aboriginal quadruped peculiar to itself. Their numbers have rapidly decreased. They are already banished from that half of the island, which lies to the eastward of the neck of land between St. Salvador Bay and Berkeley Sound. Within a very few years after these islands shall have become regularly settled, in all probability, this far will be clasped with the dodo as an animal which has perished from the face of the earth. At night of 17th, we slept on the neck of land at the head of Choice Hill Sound, which forms the southwest peninsula. The valley was pretty well sheltered from the cold wind, but there was very little brushwood for fuel. The Gorgeos, however, soon found what, to my great surprise, made nearly as hot a fire as coals. This was the skeleton of a bullock, lately killed, from which the flesh had been picked by the carrion hawks. They told me that in winter, they often killed a beast, cleaned the flesh from the bones with their knives, and then, with these same bones, roasted the meat for their suppers. 18th It rained during nearly the whole day. At night we managed, however, with our saddlecloths, to keep ourselves pretty well dry and warm. But the ground on which we slept was on each occasion, nearly in the state of a bog, and there was not a dry spot to sit down on after our day's ride. I have in another part stated how singular it is that there should be absolutely no trees on these islands, although Tierra del Fuego is covered by one large forest. The largest bush in this island, belonging to the family of Composite, is scarcely so tall as our Gorse. The best fuel is afforded by a green little bush about the size of a common heath, which has the useful property of burning while fresh and green. It was very surprising to see the Gauchos. In the midst of rain and everything soaking wet, with nothing more than a tinderbox and a piece of rag, immediately make a fire. They sought beneath the tufts of grass and bushel for a few dry twigs, and these they rubbed into fibers, then surrounding them with coarser twigs. Something like a bird's nest, they put the rag with its spark of fire in the middle and covered it up. The nest being then held up to the wind, by degrees it smoked more and more, and at last burst out into flames. I do not think any other method would have had a chance of succeeding with such damp materials. Nineteenth. Each morning, from not having ridden for some time previously, I was very stiff. I was surprised to hear the Gauchos, who have from infancy almost lived on horseback, say that under similar circumstances, they always suffer. Sanjago told me that having been confined for three months by illness, he went out hunting wild cattle, and in consequence, for the next two days, his thighs were so stiff that he was obliged to lie in bed. This shows that the Gauchos, although they do not appear to do so, yet really must exert much muscular effort in riding. The hunting of cattle in a country so difficult to pass as this, on account of the swampy ground, must be very hard work. The Gauchos say that they often pass at full speed over ground, which would be impassable at a slower pace, in the same manner as a man is able to skate over thin ice. When hunting, the party endeavors to get as close as possible to the herd without being discovered. Each man carries four or five pair of the bolas. These he throws one after another at as many cattle, which, when once entangled, are left for some days till they become a little exhausted by hunger and struggling. They are then let free and driven towards a small herd of tame animals, which have been brought to the spot on purpose. From their previous treatment, being too much terrified to leave the herd, they are easily driven, if their strength lasts out to the settlement. The weather continued so very bad that we determined to make a push and try to reach the vessel before night. From the quantity of rain which had fallen, the surface of the whole country was swampy. I suppose my horse fell at least a dozen times, and sometimes the whole six horses were floundering in the mud together. All the little streams are bordered by soft peat, which makes it very difficult for the horses to leap them without falling. To complete our discomforts, we were obliged to cross the head of a creek of the sea, in which the water was as high as our horses' backs, and the little waves, owing to the violence of the wind, broke over us and made us very wet and cold. Even the iron-framed gachos professed themselves glad when they reached the settlement after our little excursion. The geological structure of these islands is in most respects simple. The lower country consists of clayslate and sandstone, containing fossils very closely related to, but not identical with those found in the Seleurian formations of Europe. The hills are formed of white granular quartz rock. The strata of the latter are frequently arched with perfect symmetry, and the appearance of some of the masses is in consequence most singular. Purnity has devoted several pages to the description of a hill of ruins, the successive strata of which he has justly compared to the seats of an amphitheater. Biggin footnote, Purnity, Voyage of Isle, Malonas, Page 526, and Footnote. The quartz rock must have been quite pasty when it underwent such remarkable flexures without being shattered into fragments. As the quartz insensibly passes into the sandstone, it seems probable that the former owes its origin to the sandstone having been heated to such a degree that it became whisked, and upon cooling, crystallized. While in the soft state, it must have been pushed up through the overlying beds. In many parts of the island, the bottoms of the valleys are covered in an extraordinary manner by myriads of great loose, angular fragments of the quartz rock forming streams of stones. These have been mentioned with surprise by every voyager since the time of Purnity. The blocks are not water-worn, their angles being only a little blunted. They vary in size from 1 or 2 feet in diameter to 10 or even more than 20 times as much. They are not 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 can be heard trickling through the stones many feet below the surface. The actual depth is probably great because the crevices between the lower fragments must long ago have been filled up with sand. The width of these sheets of stones varied 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 overtaken by a shower of rain, I readily found shelter beneath one of them. Their little inclination is the most remarkable circumstance in these streams of stones. On the hillsides, I have seen them sloping at an angle of 10 degrees with the horizon, but in some of the level, broad bottomed valleys, the inclination 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 would not have checked the speed of an English male 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 crests, huge masses exceeding in dimensions any small building, seemed to stand arrested in their headlong course. There also, the curved strata of the archways lay piled on each other, like the ruins of some vast and ancient cathedral. In endeavoring to describe these scenes of violence, one is tempted to pass from one simile to another. We may imagine that streams of white lava had flowed from many parts of the mountains into the lower country, and that, when solidified, they had been rent by some enormous convulsion into myriads of fragments. The expression, streams of stones, which immediately occurred to everyone, conveys the same idea. These scenes are on the spot rendered more striking by the contrast of the low, rounded forms of the neighboring hills. I was interested by finding on the highest peak of one range, about 700 feet above the sea, a great arched fragment lying on its convex side or back downwards. Must we believe that it was fairly pitched up in the air and thus turned? Or with more probability that there existed formerly a part of the same range more elevated than the point on which this monument of a great convulsion of nature now lies? As the fragments in the valleys are neither rounded nor the crevices filled up with sand, we must infer that the period of violence was subsequent to the land having been raised above the waters of the sea. In a transverse section within these valleys, the bottom is nearly level or rises but very little towards either side. Hence the fragments appear to have traveled from the head of the valley but in reality it seems more probable that they have been hurled down from the nearest slopes and that since by a vibratory movement of overwhelming force the fragments have been leveled into one continuous sheet. If during the earthquake which in 1835 overthrew conception in Chile it was thought wonderful that small bodies should have been pitched a few inches from the ground what must we say to a movement which has caused fragments many tons in weight to move onwards like so much sand on a vibrating board and find their level? Begin footnote an inhabitant of Mendoza and hence well capable of judging assured me that during the several years he had resided on these islands he had never felt the slightest shock of an earthquake and footnote. I have seen in the cordillera of the Andes the evident marks where stupendous mountains have been broken into pieces like so much thin crust and the strata thrown off their vertical edges but never did any scene like these streams of stones so forcibly convey to my mind the idea of a convulsion of which in historical records we might in vain seek for any counterpart. Yet the progress of knowledge will probably someday give a simple explanation of this phenomenon as it already has of the so long thought inexplicable transportal of the erratic boulders which are strewed over the plains of Europe. I have little to remark on the zoology of these islands. I have before described the carrion welcher of Polyborus. There are some other hawks, owls and a few small land birds. The waterfall are particularly numerous and they must formerly from the accounts of the old navigators have been much more so. One day I observed a cormorant playing with a fish which it had caught. Eight times successively the bird let its prey go then dived after it and although in deep water brought it each time to the surface. In the zoological gardens I have seen the otter treat a fish in the same manner much as a cat does a mouse. I do not know of any other instance where dame nature appears so willfully cruel. Another day having placed myself between a penguin eptinoditus demersa and the water I was much amused by watching its habits. It was a brave bird and till reaching the sea it regularly fought and drove me backwards. Nothing less than heavy blows would have stopped him. Every inch he gained he firmly kept standing close before me erect and determined. When thus opposed he continually rolled his head from side to side in a very odd manner as if the power of distinct vision lay only in the anterior and basal part of each eye. This bird is commonly called the jackass penguin from its habit while on shore of throwing its head backwards and making a loud strange noise very like the braing of an ass. But while at sea and undisturbed its note is very deep and solemn and is often heard in the night time. In diving its little wings are used as fins but on land as front legs. When crawling it may be said on four legs through the tussocks or on the side of a grassy cliff it moves so very quickly that it might easily be mistaken for a quadrupet. When at sea and fishing it comes to the surface for the purpose of breathing with such a spring and dives again so instantaneously that I defy anyone at first sight to be sure that it was not a fish leaping for sport. Two kinds of geese frequent the Falklands. The upland species Inas magilanica is common in pairs and in small flocks throughout the island. They do not migrate but build on the small outlying islets. This is supposed to be from fear of the foxes and it is perhaps from the same cause that these birds though very tame by day are shy and will in the dusk of the evening. They live entirely on vegetable matter. The rock goose so called from living exclusively on the sea beach inas antartica is common both here and on the west coast of America as far north as Chile. In the deep and retired channels of Tierra del Fuego the snow white gander invariably accompanied by his darker consort and standing close by each other on some distant rocky point is a common feature in the landscape. In these islands a great loggerhead duck or goose inas bricheptora which sometimes weighs 22 pounds is very abundant. These birds were in former days called from their extraordinary manner of paddling and splashing upon the water race horses. But now they are named much more appropriately steamers. Their wings are too small and weak to allow a flight but by their aid partly swimming and partly flapping the surface of the water they move very quickly. The manner is something like that by which a common house duck escapes when pursued by a dog. But I'm nearly sure that the steamer moves its wings alternately instead of both together as in other birds. These clumsy loggerhead ducks make such a noise and splashing that the effect is exceedingly curious. Thus we find in South America three birds which use their wings for other purposes besides flight. The penguins as fins the steamer as paddles and the ostrich as sails and the apta rise of New Zealand as well as its gigantic extinct prototype the day nor-ness possess only rudimentary representatives of wings. The steamer is able to dive only to a very short distance. It feeds entirely on shellfish from the kelp and tidal rocks. Hence the beak and the head for the purpose of breaking them are surprisingly heavy and strong. The head is so strong that I have scarcely been able to fracture it with my geological hammer. And all our sportsmen soon discovered how tenacious these birds were of life. When in the evening blooming themselves in a flock they make the same odd mixture of sounds which bullfrogs do within the tropics. In Tierra Del Fuego as well as in the Falkland Islands I made many observations on the lower marine animals but they are of little general interest. Begin footnote I was surprised to find on counting the eggs of a large white Doris how extraordinary numerous they were. This sea slug was three and a half inches long. From two to five eggs were contained in spherical little case. Each three thousandth of an inch in diameter. These were arranged too deep in transfers rows forming a ribbon. The ribbon adhered to the edge of the rock in an oval spire. One which I found measured nearly 20 inches in length and half in breadth. By counting how many balls were contained in a tenth of an inch in a row and how many rows in an equal length of their ribbon on the most moderate computation there were 600,000 eggs. Yet this Doris was certainly not very common although I was often searching under the stones I saw only seven individuals. No fallacy is more common with naturalists than that the number of an individual species depend on its powers of propagation and footnote. I will mention only one class of facts relating to certain zoofights in the more highly organized division of that class. Several genera flustra eschera celeria chrysia and others agree in having singular movable organs attached to their cells like those of flustra avicularia found in the European seas. The organ in the greater number of cases very closely resembles the head of a vulture but the lower mandible can be opened much wider than in a real bird's beak. The head itself possessed considerable powers of movement by means of a short neck. In one zoofight the head itself was fixed but the lower jaw free. In another it was replaced by a triangular hood with beautifully fitted trap door which evidently answered to the lower mandible. In the greater number of species each cell was provided with one head but in others each cell had two. The young cells at the end of the branches of these coral lines contained quite immature polypy yet the vulture head attached to them though small are in every respect perfect. When the polypus was removed by a needle from any of these cells these organs did not appear in the least affected. When one of the vulture like heads was cut off from the cell the lower mandible retained its power of opening and closing. Perhaps the most singular part of their structure is that when there are more than two rows of cells on a branch the central cells were furnished with these appendages of only one fourth the size of the outside ones. Their movements varied according to the species but in some I never saw the least motion while others with the lower mandible generally wide open oscillated backwards and forwards at the rate of about five seconds each turn. Others moved rapidly and by starts. When touched with a needle the beak generally seized the point so firmly that the whole branch might be shaken. These bodies have no relation whatever with the production of the eggs or gemmules as they are formed before the young polypy appear in the cells at the end of the growing branches. As they move independently of the polypy and do not appear to be in any way connected with them and as they differ in size on the outer and inner rows of cells. I have little doubt that in their functions they are related rather to the horny axis of the branches than to the polypy in the cells. The fleshy appendage at the lower extremity of the c-pen described at Bahaya Blanca also forms part of the zoo fight as a whole in the same manner as the roots of a tree form part of the whole tree and not of the individual leaf or flower buds. In another elegant little coralline, crissia, each cell was furnished with a long-toothed bristle which had the power of moving quickly. Each of these bristles and each of the waltzher-like heads generally moved quite independently of the others but sometimes all on both sides of a branch sometimes only those on one side moved together co-instantaneously. Sometimes each moved in regular order one after another. In these actions we apparently behold as perfect a transmission of will in the zoo fight though composed of thousands of distinct polypy as in any single animal. The case indeed is not different from that of the c-pens which when touched drew themselves into the sand on the coast of Bahia Blanka. I will state one other instance of uniform action though of a very different nature in a zoo fight closely allied to Klaitya and therefore very simply organized. Having kept a large tuft of it in a basin of salt water when it was dark I found that as often as I rubbed any part of a branch the hole became strongly phosphorescent with a green light. I do not think I ever saw any object more beautifully so but the remarkable circumstance was that the flashes of light always proceeded up the branches from the base towards the extremities. The examination of these compound animals was always very interesting to me. What can be more remarkable that to see a plant like body producing an egg capable of swimming about and of choosing a proper place to adhere to which then sprouts into branches each crowded with innumerable distinct animals often of complicated organizations. The branches moreover as we had just seen sometimes possess organs capable of movement and independent of the polypy. Surprising as this union of separate individuals in common stock must always appear every tree displays the same fact for buds must be considered as individual plants. It is however natural to consider a polypus furnished with a mouth, intestines and other organs as a distinct individual whereas the individuality of a leaf bud is not easily realized so that the union of separate individuals in a common body is more striking in a caroline than in a tree. Our conception of a compound animal wherein some respects the individuality of each is not completed may be aided by reflecting on the production of two distinct creatures by bisecting a single one with a knife or where nature herself performs the task of bisection. We may consider the polypy in a zoo fight or the buds in a tree as cases where the division of the individual has not been completely affected. Certainly in the case of trees and judging from the analogy in that of the carolines the individuals propagated by buds seem more intimately related to each other than eggs or seeds are to their parents. It seems now pretty well established that plants propagated by buds all partake of a common duration of life and it is familiar to every one what singular and numerous peculiarities are transmitted with certainty by buds, layers and grafts which by seminal propagation and never or only causally reappear. End of chapter 9 part 2