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Updated: June 8, 2025
Hence the potatoes, after remaining for some hours in the boiling water, were nearly as hard as ever. The pot was left on the fire all night, and next morning it was boiled again, but yet the potatoes were not cooked. March 22nd. After eating our potatoless breakfast, we travelled across the intermediate tract to the foot of the Portillo range.
The Uspallata chain corresponds in geographical position, though on a small scale, with the Portillo line; and its clay-slate formation is probably the equivalent of the mica-schist of the Portillo, there metamorphosed by the old white granites and syenites.
From this correspondence between the Uspallata and Portillo ranges, perhaps in age and certainly in geographical position, one is tempted to consider the one range as the prolongation of the other; but their axes are formed of totally different intrusive rocks; and we have traced the apparent continuation of the red granite of the Portillo in the red porphyries diverging into the main Cordillera.
Lower down the schist prevailed more and more, with only a few quite small points of granite projecting through. Looking at the entire eastern face of the Portillo range, the red colour far exceeds in area the black; yet it was scarcely possible to doubt that the granite had once been almost wholly encased by the mica-schist.
A shadow came over every face, in view of the possible obstacles in our path; and although we tried to reassure ourselves by the reflection, that, where so large a stream could pass, there must certainly be room enough for a road, yet, it must be confessed, we wound down the hill of El Portillo to Caridad with spirits much depressed.
The altitude of the Peuquenes Range, considering its not great antiquity, is very remarkable; many of the fossils were embedded at the height of 13,210 feet, and the same beds are prolonged up to at least from fourteen to fifteen thousand feet above the level of the sea. The valley of Tenuyan, separating the Peuquenes and Portillo lines, is, as estimated by Dr.
Of these lines, there are two considerably higher than the others; namely, on the Chilian side, the Peuquenes ridge, which, where the road crosses it, is 13,210 feet above the sea; and the Portillo ridge, on the Mendoza side, which is 14,305 feet.
In the evening the stream is muddy and full, but about daybreak it becomes clearer, and much less impetuous. This we found to be the case with the Rio Vacas, and in the morning we crossed it with little difficulty. The scenery thus far was very uninteresting, compared with that of the Portillo pass.
The other main line, namely, that of the Portillo, is of a totally different formation: it consists chiefly of grand bare pinnacles of a red potash-granite, which low down on the western flank are covered by a sandstone, converted by the former heat into a quartz-rock.
Evidence derived from an inclined stream of lava at the eastern base of the Portillo might be adduced to show that it owes part of its great height to elevations of a still later date. Looking to its earliest origin, the red granite seems to have been injected on an ancient pre-existing line of white granite and mica-slate.
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