nearly the whole of its supply, leaving but a thread or two, which subsequently collects to trickle along the descending valley. On this estate there is an indigenous evergreen willow, which at a little distance greatly resembles the poplar so universal in central Chile, though preferable to it from the quality mentioned.

Five or six miles more bring us among gardens enclosed by high mud walls, containing trees in full foliage; several among them deciduous in North America. In their dust-covered leaves they afford little pleasure to the sight; even the Floripondia, with its velvety leaf and graceful bell, being robbed of its charms by the impalpable powder pervading every particle of air. During N.W. winds, Washington is considered almost intolerable; here one encounters perpetually, by day, a parched air loaded with fine sand from the coastwise hills, which penetrates every crevice of the house, and in an hour or two deposits on the furniture a stratum in which you may legibly write. As the town is approached, other objects, even less agreeable, claim the attention from their increasing number, viz: carcasses of oxen and mules which have fallen, in their journeys from the port, famished for water and food, and have been deserted to die. There are neither condors, buzzards, nor other carrion-birds to consume them; and though each train of carts has its watch-dog, provisions here are too valuable to keep many such pets, and the bodies, skins and all, are left to dry up or decay. Perhaps other animals might experience a like fate did the arrieros lose time for this purpose, and hence they hurry to their journey's end. It is not extravagant to say there are dozens of carcasses within the last two leagues, and hundreds between the city and the mines at Chañarcillo.

Externally the suburbs of Copiapó exhibit no evidences of wealth. There are neither stylish equipages nor elegant country seats, to serve as indices of the millions some of its citizens possess. Lank, travel-worn mules, and burden-carts drawn by oxen, under the control of dust-begrimed drivers, slowly travelling over a winding road between adobe walls, were all that we saw. Wherever a house is visible, even at the threshold of the city, its squat appearance and mudplastered roof is sure to make an unpleasant impression; nor is it certain to be externally whitewashed.

In 1851 Copiapó was about three fourths of a mile long, half a mile wide, and numbered above 9,000 people, of whom nearly two thirds were males. Its first street was irregular, lying nearly in the direction of the valley, from S. W. to N.E.; but as the population increased, and others became necessary, they were laid off parallel with each other, as far as possible preserving the same original line. These last are crossed by others at right angles; and, as is customary with Spanish founders, a public square has been left at the intended centre. On one side of the plaza a large church, with a Grecian front, has been erected; a style so unlike any ecclesiastical edifice in South America, that it may readily be believed the architect studied his art in North America. As the same architectural order has been preserved inside, one is tempted to doubt whether the soi-disant children of the true church do not sometimes question the propriety of worshipping within an edifice so heretically constructed. Apart from Anglo-Saxon taste, to say that it is the most chaste and commodious church in Chile is simple justice; and when the slabs of vari-colored marble, which have been imported from Italy, shall have been formed into a tesselated floor, one may visit it without fear of the fleas that specially congregate among the tiles of the others. Opposite the cathedral are barracks and public offices, forming a decent looking range of buildings of the usual style, and on which a preceding governor, during whose administration they were erected, deemed it proper to emblazon his name. The other two sides. of the square are still occupied by rows of insignificant tenements; though, as a commencement has been made towards its adornment by planting rows of trees, these houses, as the tall, straight willows grow up, will no doubt give place to better ones. There are two other churches in the western part of the city, and one in what is called "El pueblo Indio" (Indian settlement), to the eastward, where there was quite an extensive village of the natives at the invasion by Almagro.

Not far from "El pueblo Indio" there is a large charity hospital, which was mainly erected by

donations of individuals. A house of correction adjoins it. The hospital was only opened in 1850; and as it has been almost dependent for support, as it was for its foundation, on the philanthropy of the citizens, it has neither been completed in the manner originally contemplated by its beneficent authors, nor has it been able to succor all who have presented themselves. Its expenses are somewhat lessened by the employment of persons as nurses who have been sentenced to the house of correction. Only 35 patients can be accommodated, whose maintenance in 1850, including the pay of chaplain, stewards, doctor, surgeon, &c., amounted to $17,665.

There may also be enumerated among the public institutions a college for the education of young men, under the patronage of government. It is under the direction of French Jesuits, who occupy a convent belonging to the Merced church. Besides the income of the convent, amounting to $1,500, and a yearly stipend of $1,000 from the public treasury, each resident student pays them $207 for board. At this time there were 25 interns and only 11 day scholars. In addition to the duties imposed as an equivalent for the government subsidy, they are required by their contract with the Minister of Public Instruction to teach gratuitously a primary school of 30 scholars, should so many offer. A college for instruction in mineralogy and mineralogical chemistry is in course of organization, under the auspices of the Mining Board, and will shortly be in operation. But the number of those within the province who receive even rudimentary instruction is extremely limited, the best estimate fixing it at one in every 59. The whole number attending schools in 1850 was 885, of whom 725 were males and 160 females.

In a report recently made to the Minister of the Interior by the Intendente of the province, a most deplorable account is given of the ignorance of those surrounding him. He estimates the population of Atacama at 50,000 souls, of whom one half belonged to the department of Copiapó, though not more than a third of them were regarded as having permanent residences therein. The remaining two thirds were young men, strangers and natives, whose families live elsewhere in the republic. Although a country of great wealth, yet because of the extravagant prices at which everything is held, it presents few attractions for the translation of families; and, consequently, those who emigrate here, and who compose the majority of the population, are young bachelors, active tradesmen, robust journeymen, clever artisans, or hardworking miners-in short, people without domestic ties, or at least without such ties here, and who are, in fact, but a floating population. If the number of actual inhabitants be reduced to its true limits, that of the uneducated will not appear so great as at the first glance; yet the Intendente says: "It must be confessed that the condition of education is far from meeting public exigency, and many children live in the greatest ignorance and abandonment because of the wretchedness of their parents." Essentially industrial and active as they are, the people of Copiapó do not need so much a collegiate or scientific education as practical and rapid instruction for the masses. Here a disposition to labor predominates, because of its remunerative results; and few or none think of a civil or military career as at the capital, because they possess no attractions to men wholly preoccupied in lucrative speculations or personal occupations affording the highest pay.

In order to obviate the odium attendant on a condition of society so uninformed, a normal school for the preparation of teachers was commenced under the authority of the Intendente, and also a night school at which mechanics could attend gratuitously. Both were promising good results, though the provision for females remained neglected as before, and there were only two establishments in the whole city where they were admitted.

With one exception the houses are of a single story, and constructed much lower than those to the southward, because of the greater frequency of violent earthquakes. Scarcely a day in the year passes without one being felt. Like the dwellings at Santiago, they have two or three patios, and the arrangement of rooms is commodious, if not in accordance with European ideas of elegance. As it rarely rains, reeds laced to the rafters to form a roof are plastered with mud-a material much lighter than tiles, and which at the same time affords sufficient protection from water, whilst it diminishes the danger of destruction by earthquakes. There

are probably not a dozen roofs of shingle, or other materials than those mentioned, in the whole
place. Many of them being of great size, the rooms of those on the original street have
very generally been rented for stores. In each of these may be found goods of almost every
variety, as well as mining and agricultural implements. As there is very little mud at any
time, and few suitable pebble-stones nearer than a mile and a half, only a street or two has
been paved, nor has the municipal council given much thought to the necessity of sidewalks.
As to the people, they are a darker race than that in central Chile. This is attributable in part,
perhaps, to heat reflected from the sand whilst journeying to and from the mines and port; though
among the lower orders the depth of color is artificially increased, from the rare occasions
when the external skin is brought into contact with water. The men are well formed and robust,
taller than the majority of the same classes about Santiago, and retaining more of the
aboriginal cast of feature. As much cannot be said of the women, who are decidedly homely
and untidy, as well as wanting in that ease of carriage which even the lowest of the Santiaguinas
possess. As my friends told me it was not very customary to visit ladies in their own houses,
I went to the opera one evening, hoping to see something of the better classes, as well as of
the style of Copiapó. If the samples present were an average, the city has little to boast of;
and their musical taste will be estimated by the fact, that at the commencement of the last act
of Bellini's I Capuleti ed i Montecchi (Rossi being the prima donna) there were just thirty persons
in the house, of whom three were females, and two of these members of the operatic company!
There is only one inn for the accommodation of strangers, and no one would recommend this.
Therefore, those who determine to visit Copiapó must be provided with such letters as will
obtain them relief from its discomforts. My fellow-traveller had been left at the house of a
friend who enjoys a most enviable reputation for intelligence, liberality of sentiment, wealth,
and hospitality; and as a letter had been sent to me for him, Mr. Wheelwright urged that I
should not even prove the privations of the hotel an hour, but stop there with the instruments
and luggage at once. Such liberty was inexcusable in my estimation; and though earnestly
hoping some of the letters with which friends had supplied me would facilitate a rescue before
the next day passed, I started at once for the much decried Fonda. Succor, however, was
nearer than anticipated; for the carriage had scarcely gone half a square before its driver was
summoned to return, and the hospitalities of the mansion insisted on with a cordiality not less
pleasant than acceptable. The friend who gave me the letter had also written to his relative
by mail, and my arrival had been expected for some days.

On the third day after, I left Copiapó for the silver district of Chañarcillo, in company with a German friend long resident in Chile-one for whose assistance in the observations at the latter place, and instructive information during more than two years, I am under lasting obligations. On this occasion he took upon himself all the trouble of preparations for the journey, obtaining good mules and a careful arriero, as well as proper saddle-horses for our own use. Though the distance is only fifty miles, and their several packing cases formed a very light load for one animal, the cost of transportation of the magnetical instruments to the mines and back was thirty dollars-a sum which did not include the expenses of the arriero or animals. For freight of the same packages from Santiago to Valparaiso and back-a distance nearly double-the charge is very little more than one eighth, and one has nothing to do with the maintenance of animals, either biped or quadruped. We rode out of town by a road leading in a southeast direction up the course of the stream, and through a valley, or, more appropriately, through a ravine, which became perceptibly narrower every few hundred yards. So far as the meagre supply of water could be made available, there was verdure on either hand, and here and there attempts to cultivate trees and shrubbery; but the road itself, like that below Copiapó, is a mass of almost impalpable sand, ground up by constantly passing carts and mule trains. Within the first five or six leagues, three other ravines debouch on this; and the inclination of their beds, the rolled pebbles on the surface, and marks in the banks, warrant the belief that they were formerly occupied by streams, confluents of the Copiapó when it

filled the valley from side to side more than half a mile across. But the directions from which they come, and the inclination of their beds, cause a doubt whether they could have been more than torrents from the Andes when rain fell more abundantly in past ages. The river here, at present, is scarcely larger than about Ramadillo; and to insure that every possible portion of land may be impartially moistened, it is led during alternate periods to opposite sides of the ravine. So valuable are its effects, that $4,000 was paid in the preceding year for the alfalfa (lucerne) which could be cut from a single quadra of ground.

As one follows the windings of the road from side to side of the narrow valley and encounters so many unmistakable marks of the action of water, it is impossible to doubt that the original stream once filled it to a depth navigable by vessels of considerable size. The erosions, too, are not in the vertical faces of earth and gravel cliffs only, but also in granite and porphyritic rocks that form projecting termini of hills abutting on the course of the ancient stream.

Eight leagues from Copiapó is the village of Totoralillo, a straggling and untidy place. It has a large establishment for the extraction of silver from the ores, and a small Posada, where we passed the night at a charge of six dollars for the feed of four horses and the right to contend with fleas in its comfortless beds. That the latter obtained more blood from our veins than the parsimonious allowance of dried fodder imparted to those of the animals, both Don Jorje and myself will make our 'davits to. The elevation of the village above the sea is rather less than 1,900 feet.

On the following morning, it was no privation to leave the tormentors in bed and start towards our destination an hour before daybreak; and had it been, the appearance of the heavens fully studded with stars would have amply compensated the loss. As dawn advanced, and the planet Venus rose over the crest of the hills to our left, the atmosphere was so transparent that we thought its crescent quite distinct; and this could scarcely have been an illusion, as both agreed in the direction of the line joining its cusps. When the stars faded, and increasing daylight enabled us to perceive the aridity of the soil, a few small and dwarfish shrubs high in the ravines, or an occasional venerable Algarrobo (Prosopis siliquastrum) in the midst of the valley, which had been spared by the wood-hunters, were the only green objects. There were no animals, and birds were both rare and diminutive.

Five or six miles above Totoralillo the road forks: that to the left continuing beside the stream to its head-waters and "Come Cavallo" pass; while the right-hand path, inclining more to the south, leads to Chañarcillo. Ascending a little knoll at the separation of the roads, we enter a ravine not more than a hundred yards across, with a more rapid ascent, and lying between more precipitous hills. Both sides of the road are strewn with immense masses of rock which earthquakes had tumbled from the cliffs above; and the ravines, perpendicular to the principal line, are partially filled with drift-sand, whose attrition has perceptibly worn off the western faces of the dark strata. One of the rocks thus hurled down at three or four leagues from Totoralillo has been named "El Pabellon," from its resemblance to a tent. Its height will not differ greatly from ten feet, nor its base from ten feet square, the form being quite regular and perfect. Algarrobos are still met with at long intervals-sad tokens of departed fertility amid present desolation.

Above "El Pabellon" the inclination of the road is still more towards the coast, its general direction being west of south; and the constantly narrowing valley it winds along tells us, not less emphatically than the last, of the water that formerly flowed within it. Twelve leagues from Copiapó we reach "La Angostura,” two narrow gorges separated from each other by an elliptic basin, with a major axis of several hundred yards. The first gorge, or "Angostura" proper, is only wide enough for the passage of a single cart, and so tortuous that one cannot see half a bow-shot in advance. Rocks rise perpendicularly on either hand to many hundred feet, sometimes sloping away from, and at others overhanging the path, their apparently slight hold in situ rendering them fearful objects to pass beneath in a locality so visited by subterranean convulsions. An examination of the two sides shows them wonderfully

parallel in many places, the cavities of one having its projecting counterpart on the opposite wall, and we irresistibly conclude that one of these convulsions has rent the hills asunder. How awful must have been the shock! With the associations inseparable from the scenes of the preceding December and April still fresh in memory, one could not help shuddering at finding himself on such a spot, irremediably enclosed in case of a like catastrophe. It is, beyond all question, the locality which exhibits terrestrial mutability more extraordinarily than any one I had ever visited. Te gradual uprising of a continent inch by inch, extending, as it does, through ages—the wearing away of mountain ranges by torrents originating in trickling drops from over-full lakes-both tell of time whose duration wearies the mind in its contemplation; but in the accomplishment of the event whose results we witness here, there was perhaps no time. In the twinkling of an eye, almost before thought could give birth to terror, the pent up storm burst forth, flung wide the massive rocks opposing its egress, and in a brief space the earth had again settled tremblingly to quietude.

The road to the mines formerly passed by a zigzag over the hill here; nor was it discovered that nature had provided a practicable one at the very base, until a short time ago. For fifteen years mule-trains had travelled over its steep ascent, hundreds of the poor animals falling victims to the toil. When found, even levelling was unnecessary, for this service had been performed by the stream whose waters had traversed the Angostura; and it was only requisite to blast a few rocks which subsequent earth-storms had cast into the narrow space, to make a perfect carriage road. At several places there are little handfuls of surface water, and the earth is quite moist all round them, though no attempt appears to have been made to excavate for a supply. This seems more extraordinary when one sees such numbers of mule carcasses literally strewing the road from the Angostura to the Cuesta de Chañarcillo, a range of hills separating waters originally flowing into the Copiapó from the affluents of the Guasco river. An abundant supply is found at the base and on the northwest side of the range just mentioned; and from the wells there dug, both the mule-trains and the nearer mines are furnished. When the neighborhood is blessed by a rajn, a scanty stick-like pasturage suddenly springs up and matures with like celerity. This is carefully gathered by the people of the little Posada at the wells, and is doled out for the horses of travellers at prices exceeding that of equal weights of pure copper. As lumps of scoria still remain on the hill, and even in the corral of the Posada, a furnace must once have existed in the vicinity for smelting ores of this metal. No information respecting it could be obtained from the people.

At the base of the Cuesti, the northwest side, an aneroid barometer indicated an elevation of 4,412 feet above the ocean; where the road crosses the summit, 4,850 feet; and at the base, on the southeast side of the range, 4,597 feet. A new and winding road, more easy of ascent, was in course of construction, the old one being extremely precipitous and fatiguing. Several varieties of plants may be found near the summit, whose sustenance in the way of moisture must be entirely drawn from the dews at night, or fog-clouds that hang about it during the winter and spring months. Although there was a cold and driving wind in our faces, under whose influence even the horses became restive, it was impossible not to stop when we repassed it some days subsequently, for admiration of the tints enveloping the entire landscape from the far away snow-peaks of the Andes on our right to the strata of the immediate basins and ravines below us. If not already beneath our horizon, the sun must have been very near it, and was wholly obscured. Thus, most of the objects were seen at an angle oblique to the direction of his rays, and the hues were of the darkest yet sharpest characters. The snow-crests were of a rosy pink, the summits of the nearer hills bright orange, and each successive stratum between us and the bottom of the western valley of a gradually darker shade to the most decided violet. From the base on the eastern side to "El Bolaco," its southerly termination four leagues distant, there is a continual and rapid descent; and though the road lies through a ravine with somewhat similar characteristics as on the opposite side, the latter may have been but the channel for occasional rains whose water accumulated from the sides of bounding hills. I could not but