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I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of my informer, who, having lived on the spot for several years, ought to be well acquainted with the circumstance, which, if true, certainly is very curious: for we must suppose that the snow-water, being conducted through porous strata to the regions of heat, is again thrown up to the surface by the line of dislocated and injected rocks at Cauquenes; and the regularity of the phenomenon would seem to indicate that in this district heated rock occurred at a depth not very great.
It was against this man, and other wandering Indian tribes, that Rosas waged the war of extermination. September 13th. We left the baths of Cauquenes, and, rejoining the main road, slept at the Rio Clara. From this place we rode to the town of San Fernando.
In one instance, near Cauquenes, I noticed that a porphyritic conglomerate assumed a spheroidal structure, and tended to become columnar. It is soft and can be scratched by a quill; under the blowpipe swells greatly and becomes scaly, then fuses easily into a black magnetic bead. This substance is evidently similar to that which often occurs in submarine volcanic rocks.
Of late years two other provinces have been formed by the disjunction of Maule, and the provinces of Cauquenes and Cunco are nominally added to the former number, but without any addition of territory. Besides these, they possess the fortress and port of Valdivia in the country of the Cunches, the archipelago of Chiloe, and the island of Juan Fernandez.
The road passed over the level but narrow plain, bounded on one side by lofty hills, and on the other by the Cordillera. The next day we turned up the valley of the Rio Cachapual, in which the hot-baths of Cauquenes, long celebrated for their medicinal properties, are situated. The suspension bridges, in the less frequented parts, are generally taken down during the winter when the rivers are low.
Tom and Mabelle started for Santiago on Monday, but unfortunately left their letters of introduction behind; and as they did not like the hotel, they found it rather dull. We could not telegraph to them from Cauquenes, or anywhere en route, for there were no wires; so on Wednesday morning, not hearing or seeing anything of us, they returned to Valparaiso.
They are situated in a narrow deep valley just without the central Cordillera. It is a quiet, solitary spot, with a good deal of wild beauty. The mineral springs of Cauquenes burst forth on a line of dislocation, crossing a mass of stratified rock, the whole of which betrays the action of heat. A considerable quantity of gas is continually escaping from the same orifices with the water.
I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of my informer, who, having lived on the spot for several years, ought to be well acquainted with the circumstance, which, if true, certainly is very curious: for we must suppose that the snow-water, being conducted through porous strata to the regions of heat, is again thrown up to the surface by the line of dislocated and injected rocks at Cauquenes; and the regularity of the phenomenon would seem to indicate that in this district heated rock occurred at a depth not very great.
The next day we joined the main road to Coquimbo. At night there was a very light shower of rain: this was the first drop that had fallen since the heavy rain of September 11th and 12th, which detained me a prisoner at the Baths of Cauquenes. The interval was seven and a half months; but the rain this year in Chile was rather later than usual.
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 circumstance 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.
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