Geological Observations on South America Part 23

IQUIQUE, SOUTHERN PERU.

Differently from what we have seen throughout Chile, the coast here is formed not by the granitic series, but by an escarpment of the porphyritic conglomerate formation, between two and three thousand feet in height. (The lowest point, where the road crosses the coast-escarpment, is 1,900 feet by the barometer above the level of the sea.) I had time only for a very short examination; the chief part of the escarpment appears to be composed of various reddish and purple, sometimes laminated, porphyries, resembling those of Chile; and I saw some of the porphyritic breccia-conglomerate; the stratification appeared but little inclined. The uppermost part, judging from the rocks near the famous silver mine of Huantajaya, consists of laminated, impure, argillaceous, purplish-grey limestone, a.s.sociated, I believe, with some purple sandstone. (Mr. Bollaert has described "Geological Proceedings" volume 2 page 598, a singular ma.s.s of stratified detritus, gravel, and sand, eighty-one yards in thickness, overlying the limestone, and abounding with loose ma.s.ses of silver ore. The miners believe that they can attribute these ma.s.ses to their proper veins.) In the limestone sh.e.l.ls are found: the three following species were given me:--

Lucina Americana, E. Forbes.

Terebratula inca, E. Forbes.

Terebratula aenigma, D'Orbigny.

This latter species we have seen a.s.sociated with the fossils of which lists have been given in this chapter, in two places in the valley of Coquimbo, and in the ravine of Maricongo at Copiapo. Considering this fact, and the superposition of these beds on the porphyritic conglomerate formation; and, as we shall immediately see, from their containing much gypsum, and from their otherwise close general resemblance in mineralogical nature with the strata described in the valley of Copiapo, I have little doubt that these fossiliferous beds of Iquique belong to the great cretaceo-oolitic formation of Northern Chile. Iquique is situated seven degrees lat.i.tude north of Copiapo; and I may here mention, that an Ammonites, nov. species, and an Astarte, nov. species, were given me from the Cerro Pasco, about ten degrees of lat.i.tude north of Iquique, and M. D'Orbigny thinks that they probably indicate a Neocomian formation. Again, fifteen degrees of lat.i.tude northward, in Colombia, there is a grand fossiliferous deposit, now well known from the labours of Von Buch, Lea, d'Orbigny, and Forbes, which belongs to the earlier stages of the cretaceous system. Hence, bearing in mind the character of the few fossils from Tierra del Fuego, there is some evidence that a great portion of the stratified deposits of the whole vast range of the South American Cordillera belongs to about the same geological epoch.

Proceeding from the coast escarpment inwards, I crossed, in a s.p.a.ce of about thirty miles, an elevated undulatory district, with the beds dipping in various directions. The rocks are of many kinds,--white laminated, sometimes siliceous sandstone,--purple and red sandstone, sometimes so highly calcareous as to have a crystalline fracture,--argillaceous limestone,--black calcareous slate-rock, like that so often described at Copiapo and other places,--thinly laminated, fine-grained, greenish, indurated, sedimentary, fusible rocks, approaching in character to the so- called pseudo-honestone of Chile, including thin contemporaneous veins of gypsum,--and lastly, much calcareous, laminated porcelain jasper, of a green colour, with red spots, and of extremely easy fusibility: I noticed one conformable stratum of a freckled-brown, feldspathic lava. I may here mention that I heard of great beds of gypsum in the Cordillera. The only novel point in this formation, is the presence of innumerable thin layers of rock-salt, alternating with the laminated and hard, but sometimes earthy, yellowish, or bright red and ferruginous sandstones. The thickest layer of salt was only two inches, and it thinned out at both ends. On one of these saliferous ma.s.ses I noticed a stratum about twelve feet thick, of dark-brown, hard brecciated, easily fusible rock, containing grains of quartz and of black oxide of iron, together with numerous imperfect fragments of sh.e.l.ls. The problem of the origin of salt is so obscure, that every fact, even geographical position, is worth recording. (It is well known that stratified salt is found in several places on the sh.o.r.es of Peru. The island of San Lorenzo, off Lima, is composed of a pile of thin strata, about eight hundred feet in thickness, composed of yellowish and purplish, hard siliceous, or earthy sandstones, alternating with thin layers of shale, which in places pa.s.ses into a greenish, semi-porcellanic, fusible rock. There are some thin beds of reddish mudstone, and soft ferruginous rotten-stones, with layers of gypsum. In nearly all these varieties, especially in the softer sandstones, there are numerous thin seams of rock-salt: I was informed that one layer has been found two inches in thickness. The manner in which the minutest fissures of the dislocated beds have been penetrated by the salt, apparently by subsequent infiltration, is very curious. On the south side of the island, layers of coal and of impure limestone have been discovered. Hence we here have salt, gypsum, and coal a.s.sociated together. The strata include veins of quartz, carbonate of lime, and iron pyrites; they have been dislocated by an injected ma.s.s of greenish-brown feldspathic trap. Not only is salt abundant on the extreme western limits of the district between the Cordillera and the Pacific, but, according to Helms, it is found in the outlying low hills on the eastern flank of the Cordillera. These facts appear to me opposed to the theory, that rock-salt is due to the sinking of water, charged with salt, in mediterranean s.p.a.ces of the ocean. The general character of the geology of these countries would rather lead to the opinion, that its origin is in some way connected with volcanic heat at the bottom of the sea: see on this subject Sir R. Murchison "Anniversary Address to the Geological Society" 1843 page 65.) With the exception of these saliferous beds, most of the rocks as already remarked, present a striking general resemblance with the upper parts of the gypseous or cretaceo-oolitic formation of Chile.

METALLIFEROUS VEINS.

I have only a few remarks to make on this subject: in nine mining districts, some of them of considerable extent, which I visited in CENTRAL Chile, I found the PRINc.i.p.aL veins running from between [N. and N.W.] to [S. and S.E.] (These mining districts are Yaquil near Nancagua, where the direction of the chief veins, to which only in all cases I refer, is north and south; in the Uspallata range, the prevailing line is N.N.W. and S.S.E.; in the C. de Prado, it is N.N.W. and S.S.E.; near Illapel, it is N.

by W. and S. by E.; at Los Hornos the direction varies from between [N. and N.W.] to [S. and S.E.]; at the C. de los Hornos (further northward), it is N.N.W. and S.S.E.; at Panuncillo, it is N.N.W. and S.S.E.; and, lastly, at Arqueros, the direction is N.W. and S.E.): in some other places, however, their courses appeared quite irregular, as is said to be generally the case in the whole valley of Copiapo: at Tambillos, south of Coquimbo, I saw one large copper vein extending east and west. It is worthy of notice, that the foliation of the gneiss and mica-slate, where such rocks occur, certainly tend to run like the metalliferous veins, though often irregularly, in a direction a little westward of north. At Yaquil, I observed that the princ.i.p.al auriferous veins ran nearly parallel to the grain or imperfect cleavage of the surrounding GRANITIC rocks. With respect to the distribution of the different metals, copper, gold, and iron are generally a.s.sociated together, and are most frequently found (but with many exceptions, as we shall presently see) in the rocks of the lower series, between the Cordillera and the Pacific, namely, in granite, syenite, altered feldspathic clay-slate, gneiss, and as near Guasco mica-schist. The copper-ores consist of sulphurets, oxides, and carbonates, sometimes with laminae of native metal: I was a.s.sured that in some cases (as at Panuncillo S.E. of Coquimbo), the upper part of the same vein contains oxides, and the lower part sulphurets of copper. (The same fact has been observed by Mr.

Taylor in Cuba: "London Philosophical Journal" volume 11 page 21.) Gold occurs in its native form; it is believed that, in many cases, the upper part of the vein is the most productive part: this fact probably is connected with the abundance of this metal in the stratified detritus of Chile, which must have been chiefly derived from the degradation of the upper portions of the rocks. These superficial beds of well-rounded gravel and sand, containing gold, appeared to me to have been formed under the sea close to the beach, during the slow elevation of the land: Schmidtmeyer remarks that in Chile gold is sought for in shelving banks at the height of some feet on the sides of the streams, and not in their beds, as would have been the case had this metal been deposited by common alluvial action.

("Travels in Chile" page 29.) Very frequently the copper-ores, including some gold, are a.s.sociated with abundant micaceous specular iron. Gold is often found in iron-pyrites: at two gold mines at Yaquil (near Nancagua), I was informed by the proprietor that in one the gold was always a.s.sociated with copper-pyrites, and in the other with iron-pyrites: in this latter case, it is said that if the vein ceases to contain iron-pyrites, it is yet worth while to continue the search, but if the iron-pyrites, when it reappears, is not auriferous, it is better at once to give up working the vein. Although I believe copper and gold are most frequently found in the lower granitic and metamorphic schistose series, yet these metals occur both in the porphyritic conglomerate formation (as on the flanks of the Bell of Quillota and at Jajuel), and in the superinc.u.mbent strata. At Jajuel I was informed that the copper-ore, with some gold, is found only in the greenstones and altered feldspathic clay-slate, which alternate with the purple porphyritic conglomerate. Several gold veins and some of copper- ore are worked in several parts of the Uspallata range, both in the metamorphosed strata, which have been shown to have been of probably subsequent origin to the Neocomian or gypseous formation of the main Cordillera, and in the intrusive andesitic rocks of that range. At Los Hornos (N.E. of Illapel), likewise, there are numerous veins of copper- pyrites and of gold, both in the strata of the gypseous formation and in the injected hills of andesite and various porphyries.

Silver, in the form of a chloride, sulphuret, or an amalgam, or in its native state, and a.s.sociated with lead and other metals, and at Arqueros with pure native copper, occurs chiefly in the upper great gypseous or cretaceo-oolitic formation which forms probably the richest ma.s.s in Chile.

We may instance the mining districts of Arqueros near Coquimbo, and of nearly the whole valley of Copiapo, and of Iquique (where the princ.i.p.al veins run N.E. by E. and S.W. by W.), in Peru. Hence comes Molina's remark, that silver is born in the cold and solitary deserts of the Upper Cordillera. There are, however, exceptions to this rule: at Paral (S.E. of Coquimbo) silver is found in the porphyritic conglomerate formation; as I suspect is likewise the case at S. Pedro de Nolasko in the Peuquenes Pa.s.s.

Rich argentiferous lead is found in the clay-slate of the Uspallata range; and I saw an old silver-mine in a hill of syenite at the foot of the Bell of Quillota: I was also a.s.sured that silver has been found in the andesitic and porphyritic region between the town of Copiapo and the Pacific. I have stated in a previous part of this chapter, that in two neighbouring mines at Arqueros the veins in one were productive when they traversed the singular green sedimentary beds, and unproductive when crossing the reddish beds; whereas at the other mine exactly the reverse takes place; I have also described the singular and rare case of numerous particles of native silver and of the chloride being disseminated in the green rock at the distance of a yard from the vein. Mercury occurs with silver both at Arqueros and at Copiapo: at the base of C. de los Hornos (S.E. of Coquimbo, a different place from Los Hornos, before mentioned) I saw in a syenitic rock numerous quartzose veins, containing a little cinnabar in nests: there were here other parallel veins of copper and of a ferrugino-auriferous ore.

I believe tin has never been found in Chile.

From information given me by Mr. Nixon of Yaquil (At the Durazno mine, the gold is a.s.sociated with copper-pyrites, and the veins contain large prisms of plumbago. Crystallised carbonate of lime is one of the commonest minerals in the matrix of the Chilean veins.), and by others, it appears that in Chile those veins are generally most permanently productive, which, consisting of various minerals (sometimes differing but slightly from the surrounding rocks), include parallel strings RICH in metals; such a vein is called a veta real. More commonly the mines are worked only where one, two, or more thin veins or strings running in a different direction, intersect a POOR "veta real:" it is unanimously believed that at such points of intersection (cruceros), the quant.i.ty of metal is much greater than that contained in other parts of the intersecting veins. In some cruceros or points of intersection, the metals extend even beyond the walls of the main, broad, stony vein. It is said that the greater the angle of intersection, the greater the produce; and that nearly parallel strings attract each other; in the Uspallata range, I observed that numerous thin auri-ferruginous veins repeatedly ran into knots, and then branched out again. I have already described the remarkable manner in which rocks of the Uspallata range are indurated and blackened (as if by a blast of gunpowder) to a considerable distance from the metallic veins.

Finally, I may observe, that the presence of metallic veins seems obviously connected with the presence of intrusive rocks, and with the degree of metamorphic action which the different districts of Chile have undergone.

(Sir R. Murchison and his fellow travellers have given some striking facts on this subject in their account of the Ural Mountains ("Geological Proceedings" volume 3 page 748.) Such metamorphosed areas are generally accompanied by numerous dikes and injected ma.s.ses of andesite and various porphyries: I have in several places traced the metalliferous veins from the intrusive ma.s.ses into the encasing strata. Knowing that the porphyritic conglomerate formation consists of alternate streams of submarine lavas and of the debris of anciently erupted rocks, and that the strata of the upper gypseous formation sometimes include submarine lavas, and are composed of tuffs, mudstones, and mineral substances, probably due to volcanic exhalations,--the richness of these strata is highly remarkable when compared with the erupted beds, often of submarine origin, but NOT METAMORPHOSED, which compose the numerous islands in the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic Oceans; for in these islands metals are entirely absent, and their nature even unknown to the aborigines.

SUMMARY OF THE GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE CHILEAN CORDILLERA, AND OF THE SOUTHERN PARTS OF SOUTH AMERICA.

We have seen that the sh.o.r.es of the Pacific, for a s.p.a.ce of 1,200 miles from Tres Montes to Copiapo, and I believe for a very much greater distance, are composed, with the exception of the tertiary basins, of metamorphic schists, plutonic rocks, and more or less altered clay-slate.

On the floor of the ocean thus const.i.tuted, vast streams of various purplish claystone and greenstone porphyries were poured forth, together with great alternating piles of angular and rounded fragments of similar rocks ejected from the submarine craters. From the compactness of the streams and fragments, it is probable that, with the exception of some districts in Northern Chile, the eruptions took place in profoundly deep water. The orifices of eruption appear to have been studded over a breadth, with some outliers, of from fifty to one hundred miles: and closely enough together, both north and south, and east and west, for the ejected matter to form a continuous ma.s.s, which in Central Chile is more than a mile in thickness. I traced this mould-like ma.s.s, for only 450 miles; but judging from what I saw at Iquique, from specimens, and from published accounts, it appears to have a manifold greater length. In the basal parts of the series, and especially towards the flanks of the range, mud, since converted into a feldspathic slaty rock, and sometimes into greenstone, was occasionally deposited between the beds of erupted matter: with this exception the uniformity of the porphyritic rocks is very remarkable.

At the period when the claystone and greenstone porphyries nearly or quite ceased being erupted, that great pile of strata which, from often abounding with gypsum, I have generally called the gypseous formation was deposited, and feldspathic lavas, together with other singular volcanic rocks, were occasionally poured forth: I am far from pretending that any distinct line of demarcation can be drawn between this formation and the underlying porphyries and porphyritic conglomerate, but in a ma.s.s of such great thickness, and between beds of such widely different mineralogical nature, some division was necessary. At about the commencement of the gypseous period, the bottom of the sea here seems first to have been peopled by sh.e.l.ls, not many in kind, but abounding in individuals. At the P. del Inca the fossils are embedded near the base of the formation; in the Peuquenes range, at different levels, halfway up, and even higher in the series; hence, in these sections, the whole pile of strata belongs to the same period: the same remark is applicable to the beds at Copiapo, which attain a thickness of between seven and eight thousand feet. The fossil sh.e.l.ls in the Cordillera of Central Chile, in the opinion of all the palaeontologists who have examined them, belong to the earlier stages of the cretaceous system; whilst in Northern Chile there is a most singular mixture of cretaceous and oolitic forms: from the geological relations, however, of these two districts, I cannot but think that they all belong to nearly the same epoch, which I have provisionally called cretaceo-oolitic.

The strata in this formation, composed of black calcareous shaly-rocks of red and white, and sometimes siliceous sandstone, of coa.r.s.e conglomerates, limestones, tuffs, dark mudstones, and those singular fine-grained rocks which I have called pseudo-honestones, vast beds of gypsum, and many other jaspery and scarcely describable varieties, vary and replace each other in short horizontal distances, to an extent, I believe, unequalled even in any tertiary basin. Most of these substances are easily fusible, and have apparently been derived either from volcanoes still in quiet action, or from the attrition of volcanic products. If we picture to ourselves the bottom of the sea, rendered uneven in an extreme degree, with numerous craters, some few occasionally in eruption, but the greater number in the state of solfataras, discharging calcareous, siliceous, ferruginous matters, and gypsum or sulphuric acid to an amount surpa.s.sing, perhaps, even the existing sulphureous volcanoes of Java (Von Buch's "Description Physique des Iles Canaries" page 428.), we shall probably understand the circ.u.mstances under which this singular pile of varying strata was acc.u.mulated. The sh.e.l.ls appear to have lived at the quiescent periods when only limestone or calcareo-argillaceous matter was depositing. From Dr.

Gillies' account, this gypseous or cretaceo-oolitic formation extends as far south as the Pa.s.s of Planchon, and I followed it northward at intervals for 500 miles: judging from the character of the beds with the Terebratula aenigma, at Iquique, it extends from four to five hundred miles further: and perhaps even for ten degrees of lat.i.tude north of Iquique to the Cerro Pasco, not far from Lima: again, we know that a cretaceous formation, abounding with fossils, is largely developed north of the equator, in Colombia: in Tierra del Fuego, at about this same period, a wide district of clay-slate was deposited, which in its mineralogical characters and external features, might be compared to the Silurian regions of North Wales. The gypseous formation, like that of the porphyritic breccia- conglomerate on which it rests, is of inconsiderable breadth; though of greater breadth in Northern than in Central Chile.

As the fossil sh.e.l.ls in this formation are covered, in the Peuquenes ridge, by a great thickness of strata; at the Puente del Inca, by at least five thousand feet; at Coquimbo, though the superposition there is less plainly seen, by about six thousand feet; and at Copiapo, certainly by five or six thousand, and probably by seven thousand feet (the same species there recurring in the upper and lower parts of the series), we may feel confident that the bottom of the sea subsided during this cretaceo-oolitic period, so as to allow of the acc.u.mulation of the superinc.u.mbent submarine strata. This conclusion is confirmed by, or perhaps rather explains, the presence of the many beds at many levels of coa.r.s.e conglomerate, the well- rounded pebbles in which we cannot believe were transported in very deep water. Even the underlying porphyries at Copiapo. with their highly amygdaloidal surfaces, do not appear to have flowed under great pressure.

The great sinking movement thus plainly indicated, must have extended in a north and south line for at least four hundred miles, and probably was co- extensive with the gypseous formation.

The beds of conglomerate just referred to, and the extraordinarily numerous silicified trunks of fir-trees at Los Hornos, perhaps at Coquimbo and at two distant points in the valley of Copiapo, indicate that land existed at this period in the neighbourhood. This land, or islands, in the northern part of the district of Copiapo, must have been almost exclusively composed, judging from the nature of the pebbles of granite: in the southern parts of Copiapo, it must have been mainly formed of claystone porphyries, with some mica-schist, and with much sandstone and jaspery rocks exactly like the rocks in the gypseous formation, and no doubt belonging to its basal series. In several other places also, during the acc.u.mulation of the gypseous formation, its basal parts and the underlying porphyritic conglomerate must likewise have been already partially upheaved and exposed to wear and tear; near the Puente del Inca and at Coquimbo, there must have existed ma.s.ses of mica-schist or some such rock, whence were derived the many small pebbles of opaque quartz. It follows from these facts, that in some parts of the Cordillera the upper beds of the gypseous formation must lie unconformably on the lower beds; and the whole gypseous formation, in parts, unconformably on the porphyritic conglomerate; although I saw no such cases, yet in many places the gypseous formation is entirely absent; and this, although no doubt generally caused by quite subsequent denudation, may in others be due to the underlying porphyritic conglomerate having been locally upheaved before the deposition of the gypseous strata, and thus having become the source of the pebbles of porphyry embedded in them. In the porphyritic conglomerate formation, in its lower and middle parts, there is very rarely any evidence, with the exception of the small quartz pebbles at Jajuel near Aconcagua, and of the single pebble of granite at Copiapo, of the existence of neighbouring land: in the upper parts, however, and especially in the district of Copiapo, the number of thoroughly well-rounded pebbles of compact porphyries make me believe, that, as during the prolonged acc.u.mulation of the gypseous formation the lower beds had already been locally upheaved and exposed to wear and tear, so it was with the porphyritic conglomerate. Hence in following thus far the geological history of the Cordillera, it may be inferred that the bed of a deep and open, or nearly open, ocean was filled up by porphyritic eruptions, aided probably by some general and some local elevations, to that comparatively shallow level at which the cretaceo- oolitic sh.e.l.ls first lived. At this period, the submarine craters yielded at intervals a prodigious supply of gypsum and other mineral exhalations, and occasionally, in certain places poured forth lavas, chiefly of a feldspathic nature: at this period, islands clothed with fir-trees and composed of porphyries, primary rocks, and the lower gypseous strata had already been locally upheaved, and exposed to the action of the waves;--the general movement, however, at this time having been over a very wide area, one of slow subsidence, prolonged till the bed of the sea sank several thousand feet.

In Central Chile, after the deposition of a great thickness of the gypseous strata, and after their upheaval, by which the c.u.mbre and adjoining ranges were formed, a vast pile of tufaceous matter and submarine lava was acc.u.mulated, where the Uspallata chain now stands; also after the deposition and upheaval of the equivalent gypseous strata of the Peuquenes range, the great thick ma.s.s of conglomerate in the valley of Tenuyan was acc.u.mulated: during the deposition of the Uspallata strata, we know absolutely, from the buried vertical trees, that there was a subsidence of some thousand feet; and we may infer from the nature of the conglomerate in the valley of Tenuyan, that a similar and perhaps contemporaneous movement there took place. We have, then, evidence of a second great period of subsidence; and, as in the case of the subsidence which accompanied the acc.u.mulation of the cretaceo-oolitic strata, so this latter subsidence appears to have been complicated by alternate or local elevatory movement-- for the vertical trees, buried in the midst of the Uspallata strata, must have grown on dry land, formed by the upheaval of the lower submarine beds.

Presently I shall have to recapitulate the facts, showing that at a still later period, namely, at nearly the commencement of the old tertiary deposits of Patagonia and of Chile, the continent stood at nearly its present level, and then, for the third time, slowly subsided to the amount of several hundred feet, and was afterwards slowly re-uplifted to its present level.

The highest peaks of the Cordillera appear to consist of active or more commonly dormant volcanoes,--such as Tupungato, Maypu, and Aconcagua, which latter stands 23,000 feet above the level of the sea, and many others. The next highest peaks are formed of the gypseous and porphyritic strata, thrown into vertical or highly inclined positions. Besides the elevation thus gained by angular displacements, I infer, without any hesitation--from the stratified gravel-fringes which gently slope up the valleys of the Cordillera from the gravel-capped plains at their base, which latter are connected with the plains, still covered with recent sh.e.l.ls on the coast-- that this great range has been upheaved in ma.s.s by a slow movement, to an amount of at least 8,000 feet. In the Despoblado Valley, north of Copiapo, the horizontal elevation, judging from the compact, stratified tufaceous deposit, capping the distant mountains at corresponding heights, was about ten thousand feet. It is very possible, or rather probable, that this elevation in ma.s.s may not have been strictly horizontal, but more energetic under the Cordillera, than towards the coast on either side; nevertheless, movements of this kind may be conveniently distinguished from those by which strata have been abruptly broken and upturned. When viewing the Cordillera, before having read Mr. Hopkins's profound "Researches on Physical Geology," the conviction was impressed on me, that the angular dislocations, however violent, were quite subordinate in importance to the great upward movement in ma.s.s, and that they had been caused by the edges of the wide fissures, which necessarily resulted from the tension of the elevated area, having yielded to the inward rush of fluidified rock, and having thus been upturned.

The ridges formed by the angularly upheaved strata are seldom of great length: in the central parts of the Cordillera they are generally parallel to each other, and run in north and south lines; but towards the flanks they often extend more or less obliquely. The angular displacement has been much more violent in the central than in the exterior MAIN lines; but it has likewise been violent in some of the MINOR lines on the extreme flanks.

The violence has been very unequal on the same short lines; the crust having apparently tended to yield on certain points along the lines of fissures. These points, I have endeavoured to show, were probably first foci of eruption, and afterwards of injected ma.s.ses of porphyry and andesite. (Sir R. Murchison and his companions state "Geological Proceedings" volume 3 page 747, that no true granite appears in the higher Ural Mountains; but that syenitic greenstone--a rock closely a.n.a.logous to our andesite--is far the most abundant of the intrusive ma.s.ses.) The close similarity of the andesitic granites and porphyries, throughout Chile, Tierra del Fuego, and even in Peru, is very remarkable. The prevalence of feldspar cleaving like albite, is common not only to the andesites, but (as I infer from the high authority of Professor G. Rose, as well as from my own measurements) to the various claystone and greenstone porphyries, and to the trachytic lavas of the Cordillera. The andesitic rocks have in most cases been the last injected ones, and they probably form a continuous dome under this great range: they stand in intimate relationship with the modern lavas; and they seem to have been the immediate agent in metamorphosing the porphyritic conglomerate formation, and often likewise the gypseous strata, to the extraordinary extent to which they have suffered.

With respect to the age at which the several parallel ridges composing the Cordillera were upthrown, I have little evidence. Many of them may have been contemporaneously elevated and injected in the same manner as in volcanic archipelagoes lavas are contemporaneously ejected on the parallel lines of fissure. ("Volcanic Islands" etc.) But the pebbles apparently derived from the wear and tear of the porphyritic conglomerate formation, which are occasionally present in the upper parts of this same formation, and are often present in the gypseous formation, together with the pebbles from the basal parts of the latter formation in its upper strata, render it almost certain that portions, we may infer ridges, of these two formations were successively upheaved. In the case of the gigantic Portillo range, we may feel almost certain that a preexisting granitic line was upraised (not by a single blow, as shown by the highly inclined basaltic streams in the valley on its eastern flank) at a period long subsequent to the upheavement of the parallel Peuquenes range. (I have endeavoured to show in my "Journal" 2nd edition page 321, that the singular fact of the river, which drains the valley between these two ranges, pa.s.sing through the Portillo and higher line, is explained by its slow and subsequent elevation. There are many a.n.a.logous cases in the drainage of rivers: see "Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal" volume 28 pages 33 and 44.) Again, subsequently to the upheavement of the c.u.mbre chain, that of Uspallata was formed and elevated; and afterwards, I may add, in the plain of Uspallata, beds of sand and gravel were violently upthrown. The manner in which the various kinds of porphyries and andesites have been injected one into the other, and in which the infinitely numerous dikes of various composition intersect each other, plainly show that the stratified crust has been stretched and yielded many times over the same points. With respect to the age of the axes of elevation between the Pacific and the Cordillera, I know little: but there are some lines which must--namely, those running north and south in Chiloe, those eight or nine east and west, parallel, far-extended, most symmetrical uniclinal lines at P. Rumena, and the short N.W.-S.E. and N.E.- S.W. lines at Concepcion--have been upheaved long after the formation of the Cordillera. Even during the earthquake of 1835, when the linear north and south islet of St. Mary was uplifted several feet above the surrounding area, we perhaps see one feeble step in the formation of a subordinate mountain-axis. In some cases, moreover, for instance, near the baths of Cauquenes, I was forcibly struck with the small size of the breaches cut through the exterior mountain-ranges, compared with the size of the same valleys higher up where entering the Cordillera; and this circ.u.mstance appeared to me scarcely explicable, except on the idea of the exterior lines having been subsequently upthrown, and therefore having been exposed to a less amount of denudation. From the manner in which the fringes of gravel are prolonged in unbroken slopes up the valleys of the Cordillera, I infer that most of the greater dislocations took place during the earlier parts of the great elevation in ma.s.s: I have, however, elsewhere given a case, and M. de Tschudi has given another, of a ridge thrown up in Peru across the bed of a river, and consequently after the final elevation of the country above the level of the sea. ("Reise in Peru" Band 2 s.8: Author's "Journal" 2nd edition page 359.)

Ascending to the older tertiary formations, I will not again recapitulate the remarks already given at the end of the Fifth Chapter,--on their great extent, especially along the sh.o.r.es of the Atlantic--on their antiquity, perhaps corresponding with that of the eocene deposits of Europe,--on the almost entire dissimilarity, though the formations are apparently contemporaneous, of the fossils from the eastern and western coasts, as is likewise the case, even in a still more marked degree, with the sh.e.l.ls now living in these opposite though approximate seas,--on the climate of this period not having been more tropical than what might have been expected from the lat.i.tudes of the places under which the deposits occur; a circ.u.mstance rendered well worthy of notice, from the contrast with what is known to have been the case during the older tertiary periods of Europe, and likewise from the fact of the southern hemisphere having suffered at a much later period, apparently at the same time with the northern hemisphere, a colder or more equable temperature, as shown by the zones formerly affected by ice-action. Nor will I recapitulate the proofs of the bottom of the sea, both on the eastern and western coast, having subsided seven or eight hundred feet during this tertiary period; the movement having apparently been co-extensive, or nearly co-extensive, with the deposits of this age. Nor will I again give the facts and reasoning on which the proposition was founded, that when the bed of the sea is either stationary or rising, circ.u.mstances are far less favourable than when its level is sinking, to the acc.u.mulation of conchiferous deposits of sufficient thickness, extension, and hardness to resist, when upheaved, the ordinary vast amount of denudation. We have seen that the highly remarkable fact of the absence of any EXTENSIVE formations containing recent sh.e.l.ls, either on the eastern or western coasts of the continent,--though these coasts now abound with living mollusca,--though they are, and apparently have always been, as favourable for the deposition of sediment as they were when the tertiary formations were copiously deposited,--and though they have been upheaved to an amount quite sufficient to bring up strata from the depths the most fertile for animal life--can be explained in accordance with the above proposition. As a deduction, it was also attempted to be shown, first, that the want of close sequence in the fossils of successive formations, and of successive stages in the same formation, would follow from the improbability of the same area continuing slowly to subside from one whole period to another, or even during a single entire period; and secondly, that certain epochs having been favourable at distant points, in the same quarter of the world for the synchronous acc.u.mulation of fossiliferous strata, would follow from movements of subsidence having apparently, like those of elevation, contemporaneously affected very large areas.

There is another point which deserves some notice, namely, the a.n.a.logy between the upper parts of the Patagonian tertiary formation, as well as of the upper possibly contemporaneous beds at Chiloe and Concepcion, with the great gypseous formation of Cordillera; for in both formations, the rocks, in their fusible nature, in their containing gypsum, and in many other characters, show a connection, either intimate or remote, with volcanic action; and as the strata in both were acc.u.mulated during subsidence, it appears at first natural to connect this sinking movement with a state of high activity in the neighbouring volcanoes. During the cretaceo-oolitic period this certainly appears to have been the case at the Puente del Inca, judging from the number of intercalated lava-streams in the lower 3,000 feet of strata; but generally, the volcanic orifices seem at this time to have existed as submarine solfataras, and were certainly quiescent compared with their state during the acc.u.mulation of the porphyritic conglomerate formation. During the deposition of the tertiary strata we know that at S.

Cruz, deluges of basaltic lava were poured forth; but as these lie in the upper part of the series, it is possible that the subsidence may at that time have ceased: at Chiloe, I was unable to ascertain to what part of the series the pile of lavas belonged. The Uspallata tuffs and great streams of submarine lavas, were probably intermediate in age between the cretaceo- oolitic and older tertiary formations, and we know from the buried trees that there was a great subsidence during their acc.u.mulation; but even in this case, the subsidence may not have been strictly contemporaneous with the great volcanic eruptions, for we must believe in at least one intercalated period of elevation, during which the ground was upraised on which the now buried trees grew. I have been led to make these remarks, and to throw some doubt on the strict contemporaneousness of high volcanic activity and movements of subsidence, from the conviction impressed on my mind by the study of coral formations, that these two actions do not generally go on synchronously;--on the contrary, that in volcanic districts, subsidence ceases as soon as the orifices burst forth into renewed action, and only recommences when they again have become dormant.

("The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs.")

At a later period, the Pampean mud, of estuary origin, was deposited over a wide area,--in one district conformably on the underlying old tertiary strata, and in another district unconformably on them, after their upheaval and denudation. During and before the acc.u.mulation, however, of these old tertiary strata, and, therefore, at a very remote period, sediment, strikingly resembling that of the Pampas, was deposited; showing during how long a time in this case the same agencies were at work in the same area.

The deposition of the Pampean estuary mud was accompanied, at least in the southern parts of the Pampas, by an elevatory movement, so that the M.

Hermoso beds probably were acc.u.mulated after the upheaval of those round the S. Ventana; and those at P. Alta after the upheaval of the M. Hermoso strata; but there is some reason to suspect that one period of subsidence intervened, during which mud was deposited over the coa.r.s.e sand of the Barrancas de S. Gregorio, and on the higher parts of Banda Oriental. The mammiferous animals characteristic of this formation, many of which differ as much from the present inhabitants of South America, as do the eocene mammals of Europe from the present ones of that quarter of the globe, certainly co-existed at B. Blanca with twenty species of mollusca, one bala.n.u.s, and two corals, all now living in the adjoining sea: this is likewise the case in Patagonia with the Macrauchenia, which co-existed with eight sh.e.l.ls, still the commonest kinds on that coast. I will not repeat what I have elsewhere said, on the place of habitation, food, wide range, and extinction of the numerous gigantic mammifers, which at this late period inhabited the two Americas.

The nature and grouping of the sh.e.l.ls embedded in the old tertiary formations of Patagonia and Chile show us, that the continent at that period must have stood only a few fathoms below its present level, and that afterwards it subsided over a wide area, seven or eight hundred feet. The manner in which it has since been rebrought up to its actual level, was described in detail in the First and Second Chapters. It was there shown that recent sh.e.l.ls are found on the sh.o.r.es of the Atlantic, from Tierra del Fuego northward for a s.p.a.ce of at least 1,180 nautical miles, and at the height of about 100 feet in La Plata, and of 400 feet in Patagonia. The elevatory movements on this side of the continent have been slow; and the coast of Patagonia, up to the height in one part of 950 feet and in another of 1,200 feet, is modelled into eight great, step-like, gravel-capped plains, extending for hundreds of miles with the same heights; this fact shows that the periods of denudation (which, judging from the amount of matter removed, must have been long continued) and of elevation were synchronous over surprisingly great lengths of coasts. On the sh.o.r.es of the Pacific, upraised sh.e.l.ls of recent species, generally, though not always, in the same proportional numbers as in the adjoining sea, have actually been found over a north and south s.p.a.ce of 2,075 miles, and there is reason to believe that they occur over a s.p.a.ce of 2,480 miles. The elevation on this western side of the continent has not been equable; at Valparaiso, within the period during which upraised sh.e.l.ls have remained undecayed on the surface, it has been 1,300 feet, whilst at Coquimbo, 200 miles northward, it has been within this same period only 252 feet. At Lima, the land has been uplifted at least 80 feet since Indian man inhabited that district; but the level within historical times apparently has subsided. At Coquimbo, in a height of 364 feet, the elevation has been interrupted by five periods of comparative rest. At several places the land has been lately, or still is, rising both insensibly and by sudden starts of a few feet during earthquake-shocks; this shows that these two kinds of upward movement are intimately connected together. For a s.p.a.ce of 775 miles, upraised recent sh.e.l.ls are found on the two opposite sides of the continent; and in the southern half of this s.p.a.ce, it may be safely inferred from the slope of the land up to the Cordillera, and from the sh.e.l.ls found in the central part of Tierra del Fuego, and high up the River Santa Cruz, that the entire breadth of the continent has been uplifted.

From the general occurrence on both coasts of successive lines of escarpments, of sand-dunes and marks of erosion, we must conclude that the elevatory movement has been normally interrupted by periods, when the land either was stationary, or when it rose at so slow a rate as not to resist the average denuding power of the waves, or when it subsided. In the case of the present high sea-cliffs of Patagonia and in other a.n.a.logous instances, we have seen that the difficulty in understanding how strata can be removed at those depths under the sea, at which the currents and oscillations of the water are depositing a smooth surface of mud, sand, and sifted pebbles, leads to the suspicion that the formation or denudation of such cliffs has been accompanied by a sinking movement.

In South America, everything has taken place on a grand scale, and all geological phenomena are still in active operation. We know how violent at the present day the earthquakes are, we have seen how great an area is now rising, and the plains of tertiary origin are of vast dimensions; an almost straight line can be drawn from Tierra del Fuego for 1,600 miles northward, and probably for a much greater distance, which shall intersect no formation older than the Patagonian deposits; so equable has been the upheaval of the beds, that throughout this long line, not a fault in the stratification or abrupt dislocation was anywhere observable. Looking to the basal, metamorphic, and plutonic rocks of the continent, the areas formed of them are likewise vast; and their planes of cleavage and foliation strike over surprisingly great s.p.a.ces in uniform directions. The Cordillera, with its pinnacles here and there rising upwards of twenty thousand feet above the level of the sea, ranges in an unbroken line from Tierra del Fuego, apparently to the Arctic circle. This grand range has suffered both the most violent dislocations, and slow, though grand, upward and downward movements in ma.s.s; I know not whether the spectacle of its immense valleys, with mountain-ma.s.ses of once liquified and intrusive rocks now bared and intersected, or whether the view of those plains, composed of shingle and sediment hence derived, which stretch to the borders of the Atlantic Ocean, is best adapted to excite our astonishment at the amount of wear and tear which these mountains have undergone.

The Cordillera from Tierra del Fuego to Mexico, is penetrated by volcanic orifices, and those now in action are connected in great trains. The intimate relation between their recent eruptions and the slow elevation of the continent in ma.s.s, appears to me highly important, for no explanation of the one phenomenon can be considered as satisfactory which is not applicable to the other. (On the Connection of certain Volcanic Phenomena in South America: "Geological Transactions" volume 5 page 609.) The permanence of the volcanic action on this chain of mountains is, also, a striking fact; first, we have the deluges of submarine lavas alternating with the porphyritic conglomerate strata, then occasionally feldspathic streams and abundant mineral exhalations during the gypseous or cretaceo- oolitic period: then the eruptions of the Uspallata range, and at an ancient but unknown period, when the sea came up to the eastern foot of the Cordillera, streams of basaltic lava at the foot of the Portillo range; then the old tertiary eruptions; and lastly, there are here and there amongst the mountains, much worn and apparently very ancient volcanic formations without any craters; there are, also, craters quite extinct, and others in the condition of solfataras, and others occasionally or habitually in fierce action. Hence it would appear that the Cordillera has been, probably with some quiescent periods, a source of volcanic matter from an epoch anterior to our cretaceo-oolitic formation to the present day; and now the earthquakes, daily recurrent on some part of the western coast, give little hope that the subterranean energy is expended.

Recurring to the evidence by which it was shown that some at least of the parallel ridges, which together compose the Cordillera, were successively and slowly upthrown at widely different periods; and that the whole range certainly once, and almost certainly twice, subsided some thousand feet, and being then brought up by a slow movement in ma.s.s, again, during the old tertiary formations, subsided several hundred feet, and again was brought up to its present level by a slow and often interrupted movement; we see how opposed is this complicated history of changes slowly effected, to the views of those geologists who believe that this great mountain-chain was formed in late times by a single blow. I have endeavoured elsewhere to show, that the excessively disturbed condition of the strata in the Cordillera, so far from indicating single periods of extreme violence, presents insuperable difficulties, except on the admission that the ma.s.ses of once liquified rocks of the axes were repeatedly injected with intervals sufficiently long for their successive cooling and consolidation.

("Geological Transactions" volume 5 page 626.) Finally, if we look to the a.n.a.logies drawn from the changes now in progress in the earth's crust, whether to the manner in which volcanic matter is erupted, or to the manner in which the land is historically known to have risen and sunk: or again, if we look to the vast amount of denudation which every part of the Cordillera has obviously suffered, the changes through which it has been brought into its present condition, will appear neither to have been too slowly effected, nor to have been too complicated.

NOTE.

As, both in France and England, translations of a pa.s.sage in Professor Ehrenberg's Memoir, often referred to in the Fourth Chapter of this volume, have appeared, implying that Professor Ehrenberg believes, from the character of the infusoria, that the Pampean formation was deposited by a sea-debacle rushing over the land, I may state, on the authority of a letter to me, that these translations are incorrect. The following is the pa.s.sage in question:--

"Durch Beachtung der mikroscopischen Formen hat sich nun feststellen la.s.sen, das die Mastodonten-Lager am La Plata und die Knochen-Lager am Monte Hermoso, who wie die der Riesen-Gurtelthiere in den Dunenhugeln bei Bahia Blanca, beides in Patagonien, unveranderte brakische Susswa.s.serbildungen sind, die einst wohl sammtlich zum obersten Fluthgebiethe des Meeres im tieferen Festlande gehorten."--"Monatsberichten der konigl. Akad. etc." zu Berlin vom April 1845.