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Updated: May 24, 2025
Near the Pacific, the mountain-ranges are generally formed of syenite or granite, and or of an allied euritic porphyry; in the low country, besides these granitic rocks and greenstone, and much gneiss, there are, especially northward of Valparaiso, some considerable districts of true clay-slate with quartz veins, passing into a feldspathic and porphyritic slate; there is also some grauwacke and quartzose and jaspery rocks, the latter occasionally assuming the character of the basis of claystone porphyry: trap-dikes are numerous.
Some of them were sitting around the fire, smoking out of curiously-carved pipes of the red claystone. Others strode back and forth with that majestic gait for which the forest Indian has been so much celebrated. There was a silence among them that contrasted strangely with the jabbering kept up by their Mexican allies.
The trap-rocks alluded to consist chiefly of feldspathic porphyry and amygdaloid, the kernels of the latter being sometimes calcareous, often chalcedonic, and forming beautiful agates. We meet also with claystone, greenstone, compact feldspar, and tuff.
The first little range is composed of a brecciated purple porphyritic claystone, with obscurely marked strata dipping at 70 degrees to the S.W.; the other ranges consist of a pale-coloured feldspathic porphyry, a purple claystone porphyry with grains of quartz, and a rock almost exclusively composed of brick-red crystals of feldspar.
In the porphyritic claystone conglomerate, the mechanical structure and the planes of stratification have generally been much obscured and even quite obliterated towards the base of the series, whilst in the upper parts, near the summits of the mountains, both are distinctly displayed. In these upper portions the porphyries are generally lighter coloured.
As far as the Pass of Jaula, the claystone conglomerate formation, in most parts highly porphyritic, and crossed by numerous dikes of greenstone porphyry, attains a great thickness: there is also much intrusive porphyry.
Proceeding in a north-by-east direction to the village of Combarbala, we come to a third escarpment of the porphyritic conglomerate, dipping eastwards, and forming the outer range of the main Cordillera. The lower beds were here more jaspery than usual, and they included some white cherty strata and red sandstones, alternating with purple claystone porphyry.
The walls are hung with hideous shapes and skins of wild beasts; in which ever way I turn, I am attracted by odd shapes, such as the fierce visage of the grizzly bear, the white buffalo and panther; while interspersed among the horns of the cimmaron, elk and bison, are grim idols carved from the red claystone of the desert. All these, I feel sure, are the symbols of a horrid and mystic religion.
At Port Desire there is an extensive formation of the claystone porphyry, stretching at least twenty-five miles into the interior: it has been denuded and deeply worn into gullies before being covered up by the tertiary deposits, through which it here and there projects in hills; those north of the bay being 440 feet in height.
Our supper was at length finished, and washed down with a bottle of Paso wine. There was plenty of this, as well as Taos whisky in the encampment; and the roars of laughter that reached us from without proved that the hunters were imbibing freely of the latter. The doctor drew out his great meerschaum, Gode filled a red claystone, while Seguin and I lit our husk cigarettes.
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