Geological Observations on South America. Darwin Charles

begins sensibly to expand, and soon forms a considerable plain, 440 feet above the level of the sea, through which the river flows in a gut from twenty to forty feet in depth. I here found, at a point 140 miles from the Atlantic, and seventy miles from the nearest creek of the Pacific, at the height of 410 feet, a very old and worn shell of Patella deaurita. Lower down the valley, 105 miles from the Atlantic (longitude 71 degrees W.), and at an elevation of about 300 feet, I also found, in the bed of the river, two much worn and broken shells of the Voluta ancilla, still retaining traces of their colours; and one of the Patella deaurita. It appeared that these shells had been washed from the banks into the river; considering the distance from the sea, the desert and absolutely unfrequented character of the country, and the very ancient appearance of the shells (exactly like those found on the plains nearer the coast), there is, I think, no cause to suspect that they could have been brought here by Indians.

      The plain at the head of the valley is tolerably level, but water-worn, and with many sand-dunes on it like those on a sea-coast. At the highest point to which we ascended, it was sixteen miles wide in a north and south line; and forty-five miles in length in an east and west line. It is bordered by the escarpments, one above the other, of two plains, which diverge as they approach the Cordillera, and consequently resemble, at two levels, the shores of great bays facing the mountains; and these mountains are breached in front of the lower plain by a remarkable gap. The valley, therefore, of the Santa Cruz consists of a straight broad cut, about ninety miles in length, bordered by gravel-capped terraces and plains, the escarpments of which at both ends diverge or expand, one over the other, after the manner of the shores of great bays. Bearing in mind this peculiar form of the land – the sand-dunes on the plain at the head of the valley – the gap in the Cordillera, in front of it – the presence in two places of very ancient shells of existing species – and lastly, the circumstance of the 355-453 feet plain, with the numerous marine remains on its surface, sweeping from the Atlantic coast, far up the valley, I think we must admit, that within the recent period, the course of the Santa Cruz formed a sea-strait intersecting the continent. At this period, the southern part of South America consisted of an archipelago of islands 360 miles in a north and south line. We shall presently see, that two other straits also, since closed, then cut through Tierra del Fuego; I may add, that one of them must at that time have expanded at the foot of the Cordillera into a great bay (now Otway Water) like that which formerly covered the 440 feet plain at the head of the Santa Cruz.

       (DIAGRAM 6. NORTH AND SOUTH SECTION ACROSS THE TERRACES BOUNDING THE VALLEY OF THE RIVER SANTA CRUZ, HIGH UP ITS COURSE.

      The height of each terrace, above the level of the river (furthest to nearest to the river) in feet:

      A, north and south: 1,122

      B, north and south: 869

      C, north and south: 639

      D, north: not measured. D, north? (suggest south): 185

      E: 20

      Bed of River.

      Vertical scale 1/20 of inch to 100 feet; but terrace E, being only twenty feet above the river, has necessarily been raised. The horizontal distances much contracted; the distance from the edge of A North to A South being on an average from seven to ten miles.) I have said that the valley in its whole course is bordered by gravel- capped plains. The section (Diagram 6), supposed to be drawn in a north and south line across the valley, can scarcely be considered as more than illustrative; for during our hurried ascent it was impossible to measure all the plains at any one place. At a point nearly midway between the Cordillera and the Atlantic, I found the plain (A north) 1,122 feet above the river; all the lower plains on this side were here united into one great broken cliff: at a point sixteen miles lower down the stream, I found by measurement and estimation that B (north) was 869 above the river: very near to where A (north) was measured, C (north) was 639 above the same level: the terrace D (north) was nowhere measured: the lowest E (north) was in many places about twenty feet above the river. These plains or terraces were best developed where the valley was widest; the whole five, like gigantic steps, occurred together only at a few points. The lower terraces are less continuous than the higher ones, and appear to be entirely lost in the upper third of the valley. Terrace C (south), however was traced continuously for a great distance. The terrace B (north), at a point fifty- five miles from the mouth of the river, was four miles in width; higher up the valley this terrace (or at least the second highest one, for I could not always trace it continuously) was about eight miles wide. This second plain was generally wider than the lower ones – as indeed follows from the valley from A (north) to A (south) being generally nearly double the width of from B (north) to B (south). Low down the valley, the summit-plain A (south) is continuous with the 840 feet plain on the coast, but it is soon lost or unites with the escarpment of B (south). The corresponding plain A (north), on the north side of the valley, appears to range continuously from the Cordillera to the head of the present estuary of the Santa Cruz, where it trends northward towards Port St. Julian. Near the Cordillera the summit-plain on both sides of the valley is between 3,200 and 3,300 feet in height; at 100 miles from the Atlantic, it is 1,416 feet, and on the coast 840 feet, all above the sea-beach; so that in a distance of 100 miles the plain rises 576 feet, and much more rapidly near to the Cordillera. The lower terraces B and C also appear to rise as they run up the valley; thus D (north), measured at two points twenty-four miles apart, was found to have risen 185 feet. From several reasons I suspect, that this gradual inclination of the plains up the valley, has been chiefly caused by the elevation of the continent in mass, having been the greater the nearer to the Cordillera.

      All the terraces are capped with well-rounded gravel, which rests either on the denuded and sometimes furrowed surface of the soft tertiary deposits, or on the basaltic lava. The difference in height between some of the lower steps or terraces seems to be entirely owing to a difference in the thickness of the capping gravel. Furrows and inequalities in the gravel, where such occur, are filled up and smoothed over with sandy earth. The pebbles, especially on the higher plains, are often whitewashed, and even cemented together by a white aluminous substance, and I occasionally found this to be the case with the gravel on the terrace D. I could not perceive any trace of a similar deposition on the pebbles now thrown up by the river, and therefore I do not think that terrace D was river-formed. As the terrace E generally stands about twenty feet above the bed of the river, my first impression was to doubt whether even this lowest one could have been so formed; but it should always be borne in mind, that the horizontal upheaval of a district, by increasing the total descent of the streams, will always tend to increase, first near the sea-coast and then further and further up the valley, their corroding and deepening powers: so that an alluvial plain, formed almost on a level with a stream, will, after an elevation of this kind, in time be cut through, and left standing at a height never again to be reached by the water. With respect to the three upper terraces of the Santa Cruz, I think there can be no doubt, that they were modelled by the sea, when the valley was occupied by a strait, in the same manner (hereafter to be discussed) as the greater step-formed, shell- strewed plains along the coast of Patagonia.

      To return to the shores of the Atlantic: the 840 feet plain, at the mouth of the Santa Cruz, is seen extending horizontally far to the south; and I am informed by the Officers of the Survey, that bending round the head of Coy Inlet (sixty-five miles southward), it trends inland. Outliers of apparently the same height are seen forty miles farther south, inland of the river Gallegos; and a plain comes down to Cape Gregory (thirty-five miles southward), in the Strait of Magellan, which was estimated at between eight hundred and one thousand feet in height, and which, rising towards the interior, is capped by the boulder formation. South of the Strait of Magellan, there are large outlying masses of apparently the same great tableland, extending at intervals along the eastern coast of Tierra del Fuego: at two places here, 110 miles a part, this plain was found to be 950 and 970 feet in height.

      From Coy Inlet, where the high summit-plain trends inland, a plain estimated at 350 feet in height, extends for forty miles to the river Gallegos. From this point to the Strait of Magellan, and on each side of that Strait, the country has been much denuded and is less level. It consists chiefly of the boulder formation, which rises to a height of between one hundred and fifty and two hundred and fifty feet, and is often capped by beds of gravel. At N.S. Gracia, on the north side of the Inner Narrows of the Strait of Magellan, I found on the summit of a cliff, 160 feet