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known to naturalists, Mr. Earle made careful drawings of
them, and Mr. Darwin preserved many in spirits. AVe procured
plenty of good fresh water from wells near the beach,
and small wood for fuel in their immediate neighbourhood.
The climate is delightful, and healthy to the utmost degree,
notwithstanding such extensive flats, half-covered with water,
and so many large mud-banks. Perhaps the tides, which rise
from eight to twelve feet, and run two or three knots an hour,
tend to purify the air ; indeed, as the whole inlet is of salt
water, there may be no cause for such effects as would be
expected in similar situations near fresh water.
In our rambles over the country, near Port Belgrano, we
every where found small pieces of pumice-stone; and till Mr.
Darwin examined the Ventana, supposed they had been thrown
thence: he has, however, ascertained that it is not volcanic;
and, I believe, concludes that these fragments came from the
Cordillera of the Andes.—(See Vol. I I I . by Mr. Darwin.)
Falkner, in whose accounts of what he himself saw I have
full faith, has a curious passage illustrative of this supposition;
and it is not impossible—nor even, I think, improbable—that
some of the pumice we saw fell at the time mentioned in the
following extract:—“ Being in the Vuulcan, below Cape St.
Anthony, I was witness to a vast cloud of ashes being carried
by the winds, and darkening the whole sky. I t spread over
great part of the jurisdiction of Buenos Ayres, passed the
river of Plata, and scattered its contents on both sides of the
river, insomuch that the grass was covered with ashes. This
was caused by the eruption of a volcano near Mendoza, the
winds carrying the light ashes to the incredible distance of
three hundred leagues or more.”—Falkner, p. .51.'
As an indisputable, and very recent instance of the distance
to wliich volcanic substances are sometimes carried, I might
mention the fact of H.M.S. Conway having passed through
quantities of pumice-stone and ashes, in latitude 7° north, and
longitude 103° west, being more than seven hundred miles from
the nearest land, and eleven hundred from the volcano neai-
Realejo, whence it is supposed that they proceeded; but as it is
- L ’f
possible that those substances might have been thrown out of a
volcano in the Galapagos Islands, and drifted on the surface
of the sea by currents, which near there run from twenty to
eighty miles in twenty-four hours, towards the north-west, one
cannot, with certainty, rely upon that fact as evidence of a
distance to which pumice has been carried by wind.
Captain Eden informed me, that the Conway was surrounded
by ashes and pumice-stone for a day and a half (on
the 5th and 6th of May 1835), and that they were supposed
to have been ejected from a volcano near Realejo, at the time
of the great earthquake; and an eruption w'hich darkened the
air during three days.
The aborigines of these regions attach considerable importance
to the Ventana,* chiefly on account of its use as a landmark
; for, rising abruptly to the height of 3,340 feet in a flat
country, where there is not another hill of consequence, it is
of no small use to them in their wanderings. I was told by
Mr. Darwin, that he found it to be chiefly of quartz formation
; but I need not risk causing a mistake, by repeating here
the information which he gave me, when it is given fully in
his own words in the accompanying volume.
After a few days’ examination of Port Belgrano, and
making inquiries of Harris, as well as those persons at
Argentina who knew something of the neighbouring waters
and shores, I was convinced that the Beagle alone could not
explore them, so fai- as to make her survey of any real use,
unless she were to sacrifice a great deal more time than would
he admissible, considering the other objects of her expedition.
AVhat then was to be done ? Open boats could not explore
the seaward limits of those numerous shoals which lie between
Blanco Bay and the river Negro, because there are dangerous
‘ races,’+ and often heavy seas. The Beagle herself, no
doubt, could do so, and her boats might explore the inlets;
hut, the time that such a proceeding would occupy was
• The Fuel Indians called the Ventana Casu-hati (high hill); and the
Molu-che, Viita-calel (great bulk.)—Falkner, p. 74.
t Tide-races, or ripples.
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