The Land, As In Chile, Owes Its Fertility
Entirely To Artificial Irrigation; And It Is Really Wonderful
To Observe How Extraordinarily Productive A Barren
Traversia Is Thus Rendered.
We stayed the ensuing day in Mendoza.
The prosperity
of the place has much declined of late years. The inhabitants
say "it is good to live in, but very bad to grow rich in."
The lower orders have the lounging, reckless manners of the
Gauchos of the Pampas; and their dress, riding-gear, and
habits of life, are nearly the same. To my mind the town
had a stupid, forlorn aspect. Neither the boasted alameda,
nor the scenery, is at all comparable with that of Santiago;
but to those who, coming from Buenos Ayres, have just
crossed the unvaried Pampas, the gardens and orchards must
appear delightful. Sir F. Head, speaking of the inhabitants,
says, "They eat their dinners, and it is so very hot, they go
to sleep - and could they do better?" I quite agree with
Sir F. Head: the happy doom of the Mendozinos is to eat,
sleep and be idle.
March 29th. - We set out on our return to Chile, by the
Uspallata pass situated north of Mendoza. We had to cross
a long and most sterile traversia of fifteen leagues. The
soil in parts was absolutely bare, in others covered by
numberless dwarf cacti, armed with formidable spines, and called
by the inhabitants "little lions." There were, also, a few
low bushes. Although the plain is nearly three thousand feet
above the sea, the sun was very powerful; and the heat as
well as the clouds of impalpable dust, rendered the travelling
extremely irksome. Our course during the day lay nearly
parallel to the Cordillera, but gradually approaching them.
Before sunset we entered one of the wide valleys, or rather
bays, which open on the plain: this soon narrowed into a
ravine, where a little higher up the house of Villa Vicencio
is situated. As we had ridden all day without a drop of
water, both our mules and selves were very thirsty, and we
looked out anxiously for the stream which flows down this
valley. It was curious to observe how gradually the water
made its appearance: on the plain the course was quite dry;
by degrees it became a little damper; then puddles of water
appeared; these soon became connected; and at Villa Vicencio
there was a nice little rivulet.
30th. - The solitary hovel which bears the imposing name
of Villa Vicencio, has been mentioned by every traveller who
has crossed the Andes. I stayed here and at some neighbouring
mines during the two succeeding days. The geology
of the surrounding country is very curious. The Uspallata
range is separated from the main Cordillera by a long narrow
plain or basin, like those so often mentioned in Chile,
but higher, being six thousand feet above the sea. This
range has nearly the same geographical position with respect
to the Cordillera, which the gigantic Portillo line has, but it
is of a totally different origin: it consists of various kinds
of submarine lava, alternating with volcanic sandstones and
other remarkable sedimentary deposits; the whole having a
very close resemblance to some of the tertiary beds on the
shores of the Pacific. From this resemblance I expected to
find silicified wood, which is generally characteristic of those
formations. I was gratified in a very extraordinary manner.
In the central part of the range, at an elevation of about
seven thousand feet, I observed on a bare slope some snow-white
projecting columns. These were petrified trees, eleven
being silicified, and from thirty to forty converted into
coarsely-crystallized white calcareous spar. They were abruptly
broken off, the upright stumps projecting a few feet
above the ground. The trunks measured from three to five
feet each in circumference. They stood a little way apart
from each other, but the whole formed one group. Mr. Robert
Brown has been kind enough to examine the wood: he
says it belongs to the fir tribe, partaking of the character
of the Araucarian family, but with some curious points of
affinity with the yew. The volcanic sandstone in which the
trees were embedded, and from the lower part of which they
must have sprung, had accumulated in successive thin layers
around their trunks; and the stone yet retained the impression
of the bark.
It required little geological practice to interpret the
marvellous story which this scene at once unfolded; though I
confess I was at first so much astonished that I could
scarcely believe the plainest evidence. I saw the spot where
a cluster of fine trees once waved their branches on the
shores of the Atlantic, when that ocean (now driven back
700 miles) came to the foot of the Andes. I saw that they
had sprung from a volcanic soil which had been raised above
the level of the sea, and that subsequently this dry land,
with its upright trees, had been let down into the depths of
the ocean. In these depths, the formerly dry land was
covered by sedimentary beds, and these again by enormous
streams of submarine lava - one such mass attaining the
thickness of a thousand feet; and these deluges of molten
stone and aqueous deposits five times alternately had been
spread out. The ocean which received such thick masses,
must have been profoundly deep; but again the subterranean
forces exerted themselves, and I now beheld the bed of
that ocean, forming a chain of mountains more than seven
thousand feet in height. Nor had those antagonistic forces
been dormant, which are always at work wearing down the
surface of the land; the great piles of strata had been
intersected by many wide valleys, and the trees now changed
into silex, were exposed projecting from the volcanic soil,
now changed into rock, whence formerly, in a green and
budding state, they had raised their lofty heads. Now,
all is utterly irreclaimable and desert; even the lichen cannot
adhere to the stony casts of former trees.
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