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Updated: June 11, 2025
Terebratula aenigma, var. Spirifer Chilensis. Mingled together in alternating beds in the main valley of Copiapo near Las Amolanas, and likewise higher up the valley: Pecten Dufreynoyi. Turritella Andii. Terebratula aenigma, var. as at Guasco. Astarte Darwinii. Gryphaea Darwinii. Gryphaea nov. species? Perna Americana. Avicula, nov. species. Pecten Dufreynoyi. Gryphaea Darwinii?
The business of the Mercury was to look into the port of Copiapo, called Caldera, near which there are some gold-mines, and from whence considerable quantities of gold are exported in small vessels; and our bark had the advantage of being of that country build, so that she could not excite suspicion.
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.
After spending one day at Ballenar I set out, on the 10th, for the upper part of the valley of Copiapo. We rode all day over an uninteresting country. I am tired of repeating the epithets barren and sterile.
Secondly, almost every labourer, especially in the northern parts of Chile, understands something about the appearance of ores. In the great mining provinces of Coquimbo and Copiapo, firewood is very scarce, and men search for it over every hill and dale; and by this means nearly all the richest mines have there been discovered.
If, however, the species from Las Amolanas, in the Valley of Copiapo, had, as in the case of those from Guasco, been separately examined, they would probably have been ranked as oolitic; for, although no Spirifers were found here, all the other species, with the exception of the Pecten, Turritella, and Astarte, have a more ancient aspect than cretaceous forms.
The valley of Copiapo, forming a mere ribbon of green in a desert, runs in a very southerly direction; so that it is of considerable length to its source in the Cordillera. The valleys of Guasco and Copiapo may both be considered as long narrow islands, separated from the rest of Chile by deserts of rock instead of by salt water.
We have seen that the shores of the Pacific, for a space of 1,200 miles from Tres Montes to Copiapo, and I believe for a very much greater distance, are composed, with the exception of the tertiary basins, of metamorphic schists, plutonic rocks, and more or less altered clay-slate.
I set out on a journey to Coquimbo, and thence through Guasco to Copiapo, where Captain Fitz Roy kindly offered to pick me up in the "Beagle." The distance in a straight line along the shore northward is only 420 miles; but my mode of travelling made it a very long journey. I bought four horses and two mules, the latter carrying the luggage on alternate days.
He mentioned a curious coincidence which then happened: he was playing at cards, when a German, one of the party, got up, and said he would never sit in a room in these countries with the door shut, as owing to his having done so, he had nearly lost his life at Copiapo.
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