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Section from Illapel to Combarbala; gypseous formation with silicified wood. Panuncillo. Coquimbo; mines of Arqueros; section up valley; fossils. Guasco, fossils of. Copiapo, section up valley; Las Amolanas, silicified wood. Conglomerates, nature of former land, fossils, thickness of strata, great subsidence. Valley of Despoblado, fossils, tufaceous deposit, complicated dislocations of.
I hired a guide and eight mules to take me into the Cordillera by a different line from my last excursion. As the country was utterly desert, we took a cargo and a half of barley mixed with chopped straw. About two leagues above the town a broad valley called the "Despoblado," or uninhabited, branches off from that one by which we had arrived.
In Central Chile, from the extreme metamorphic action, it is in most parts difficult to distinguish between the streams of porphyritic lava and the porphyritic breccia-conglomerate, but here, at Copiapo, they are generally perfectly distinct, and in the Despoblado, I saw for the first time, two great strata of purple claystone porphyry, after having been for a considerable space closely united together, one above the other, become separated by a mass of fragmentary matter, and then both thin out; the lower one more rapidly than the upper and greater stream.
Corfield's house at Valparaiso. Coast-road to Coquimbo. Great loads carried by the miners. Coquimbo. Earthquake. Step-formed terraces. Absence of recent deposits. Contemporaneousness of the Tertiary formations. Excursion up the valley. Road to Guasco. Deserts. Valley of Copiapo. Rain and Earthquakes. Hydrophobia. The Despoblado. Indian ruins. Probable change of climate.
My master was the other day riding in the despoblado, above the pass, on his fine Andalusian steed, which had cost him five hundred dollars; suddenly the horse stopped, and sweated and trembled like a woman in the act of fainting; my master could not conceive the reason, but presently he heard a squealing and growling in the bushes, whereupon he fired off his gun and scared the wolves, who scampered away; but he tells me, that the horse has not yet recovered from his fright."
"We must pass through it," said Antonio, "for more reasons than one: first, forasmuch is the road lies through Jaraicejo; and second, forasmuch as it will be necessary to purchase provisions there, both for ourselves and horses. On the other side of Jaraicejo there is a wild desert, a despoblado, where we shall find nothing."
We crossed the valley, and ascended the hill, and as we drew near to the town the Gypsy said, "Brother, we had best pass through that town singly. I will go in advance; follow slowly, and when there purchase bread and barley; you have nothing to fear. I will await you on the despoblado." Without waiting for my answer he hastened forward, and was speedily out of sight.
The vega upon which we now entered forms a part of the grand despoblado or desert of Andalusia, once a smiling garden, but which became what it now is on the expulsion of the Moors from Spain, when it was drained almost entirely of its population.
The smell of the 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.
The valley of Copiapo is much less steeply inclined and less direct in its course than any other valley which I saw in Chile; and its bottom does not generally consist of gravel: there are no step-formed terraces in it, except at one spot near the mouth of the great lateral valley of the Despoblado where there are only two, one above the other: lower down the valley, in one place I observed that the solid rock had been cut into the shape of a beach, and was smoothed over with shingle.
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