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Show 440 NOR'!'HERN CHILE· June, 1835. bivouacked at the " primera linea," or the first line of th~ par-t'it 'w n of th e wa ters · The streams' however, on the ea.s t s.i de d.o not flow to the Atlantic, but into an elevated distnct, m the middle of which there is a large salina, ?r salt lake ;thus forming a little Caspian sea at the elevatiOn, perhaps, of ten thousand feet. Where we slept, there were some considerable patches of snow, but they do ~ot remain throughout the year. The winds in these lofty regwns obey very regular laws: every day a fresh breeze blows up the valley, and at ni?ht, an hour or two after sunset, the air from the cold regwns above descends, as through a funnel. This night it bl.ew a gale of wind, and the temperature must ~ave been c?nsiderably below the freezing-point, for water m a short time became a block of ice. No clothes seemed to oppose any obstacle to the air; I suffered very much from the cold, so that I could not sleep, and in the morning rose with my body quite dull and benumbed. . . In the Cordillera further southward, people lose their hvcs from snow-storms ; here, this sometimes happens from another cause. My guide, when a boy of fourteen years old, was passing the Cordillera with some others, in the month of May ; and while in the central parts, a furious gale of wind arose so that the men could hardly stick on their mules, and stones were flying along the ground. The day was cloudless and not a speck of snow fell, but the temperature was low. It is probable that the thermometer would not have stood very many degrees below the freezing-point, but the effect on their bodies, ill protected by clothing, would be in proportion to the rapidity of the current of cold air. The gale lasted for more than a day ; the men began to lose all their strength, and the mules would not move onwards. My guide's brother tried to return, but he peris~ed, and his body was found two years afterwards, lying by the side of his mule near the road, with the bridle still in his hand. Two other men in the party lost their fingers and toes, and out of two hundred mules and thirty cows, only fourteen of the former escaped alive. Many years ago the whole of a large July, 1835. COPIAPU. 441 partr are supposed to have perished from a similar cause, but their bodies to this day have never been discovered. The union of a cloudless sky, low temperature, and a furious gale of wind, must be I should think, in all parts of the world, an unusual occurrence. JUNE 29TH.-We gladly travelled down the valley to our former night's lodging, and thence to near the Agua amarga. On July 1st, we reached the valley of Copiap6. The smell of ~he fresh clover was quite delightful, after the scentless air of the dry sterile Despoblado. Whilst staying in the town, I heard an account from several of the inhabitants of a hill in the neighbourhood, which they called "El Bramador,"the roarer or bellower. I did not at the time pay sufficient attention to the account; but as far as I understood, the hill was covered by sand, and the noise was produced only when people, by ascending it, put the sand in motion. Upon reading an article in the Edinburgh Journal,* I was surprised to find the same circumstances, described in detail on the authority of Seetzen and Ehrenbergh, as the cause of the sounds, which have been heard by many travellers on Mount Sinai near the Red Sea. One person with whom I conversed had himself heard the noise; he described it as very surprising ; and he distinctly stated, that although he could not understand how it was effected, yet it was necessary to set the sand rolling down the acclivity. I can vouch for the quantity of loose sand lying on the bare granite mountains in this neighbourhood. From the position of the hill, and from the account which I received, the phenomenon certainly does not appear to have any direct connexion with volcanic causes. I may remark that a horse walking over dry and coarse sand, causes a peculiar chirping noise from the friction of the particles: a fact whieh I have several times noticed on the coast of Brazil. Three days afterwards I heard of the Beagle's arrival at * Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, January, 1830, p. 74. Also, another article in the number for April in the same year, p. 258. Sec also Daubeny on Volcanoes, p. 438. · |