Proceeding from the coast escarpment inwards, I crossed, in a space of about thirty miles, an elevated undulatory district, with the beds dipping in various directions.The rocks are of many kinds,--white laminated, sometimes siliceous sandstone,--purple and red sandstone, sometimes so highly calcareous as to have a crystalline fracture,--argillaceous limestone,--black calcareous slate-rock, like that so often described at Copiapo and other places,--thinly laminated, fine-grained, greenish, indurated, sedimentary, fusible rocks, approaching in character to the so-called pseudo-honestone of Chile, including thin contemporaneous veins of gypsum,--and lastly, much calcareous, laminated porcelain jasper, of a green colour, with red spots, and of extremely easy fusibility: I noticed one conformable stratum of a freckled-brown, feldspathic lava.I may here mention that I heard of great beds of gypsum in the Cordillera.The only novel point in this formation, is the presence of innumerable thin layers of rock-salt, alternating with the laminated and hard, but sometimes earthy, yellowish, or bright red and ferruginous sandstones.The thickest layer of salt was only two inches, and it thinned out at both ends.On one of these saliferous masses I noticed a stratum about twelve feet thick, of dark-brown, hard brecciated, easily fusible rock, containing grains of quartz and of black oxide of iron, together with numerous imperfect fragments of shells.The problem of the origin of salt is so obscure, that every fact, even geographical position, is worth recording.(It is well known that stratified salt is found in several places on the shores of Peru.The island of San Lorenzo, off Lima, is composed of a pile of thin strata, about eight hundred feet in thickness, composed of yellowish and purplish, hard siliceous, or earthy sandstones, alternating with thin layers of shale, which in places passes into a greenish, semi-porcellanic, fusible rock.There are some thin beds of reddish mudstone, and soft ferruginous rotten-stones, with layers of gypsum.In nearly all these varieties, especially in the softer sandstones, there are numerous thin seams of rock-salt: I was informed that one layer has been found two inches in thickness.The manner in which the minutest fissures of the dislocated beds have been penetrated by the salt, apparently by subsequent infiltration, is very curious.On the south side of the island, layers of coal and of impure limestone have been discovered.Hence we here have salt, gypsum, and coal associated together.The strata include veins of quartz, carbonate of lime, and iron pyrites; they have been dislocated by an injected mass of greenish-brown feldspathic trap.Not only is salt abundant on the extreme western limits of the district between the Cordillera and the Pacific, but, according to Helms, it is found in the outlying low hills on the eastern flank of the Cordillera.These facts appear to me opposed to the theory, that rock-salt is due to the sinking of water, charged with salt, in mediterranean spaces of the ocean.The general character of the geology of these countries would rather lead to the opinion, that its origin is in some way connected with volcanic heat at the bottom of the sea: see on this subject Sir R.Murchison "Anniversary Address to the Geological Society" 1843 page 65.) With the exception of these saliferous beds, most of the rocks as already remarked, present a striking general resemblance with the upper parts of the gypseous or cretaceo-oolitic formation of Chile.
METALLIFEROUS VEINS.
I have only a few remarks to make on this subject: in nine mining districts, some of them of considerable extent, which I visited in CENTRALChile, I found the PRINCIPAL veins running from between [N.and N.W.] to [S.and S.E.] (These mining districts are Yaquil near Nancagua, where the direction of the chief veins, to which only in all cases I refer, is north and south; in the Uspallata range, the prevailing line is N.N.W.and S.S.E.; in the C.de Prado, it is N.N.W.and S.S.E.; near Illapel, it is N.
by W.and S.by E.; at Los Hornos the direction varies from between [N.and N.W.] to [S.and S.E.]; at the C.de los Hornos (further northward), it is N.N.W.and S.S.E.; at Panuncillo, it is N.N.W.and S.S.E.; and, lastly, at Arqueros, the direction is N.W.and S.E.): in some other places, however, their courses appeared quite irregular, as is said to be generally the case in the whole valley of Copiapo: at Tambillos, south of Coquimbo, I saw one large copper vein extending east and west.It is worthy of notice, that the foliation of the gneiss and mica-slate, where such rocks occur, certainly tend to run like the metalliferous veins, though often irregularly, in a direction a little westward of north.At Yaquil, I observed that the principal auriferous veins ran nearly parallel to the grain or imperfect cleavage of the surrounding GRANITIC rocks.With respect to the distribution of the different metals, copper, gold, and iron are generally associated together, and are most frequently found (but with many exceptions, as we shall presently see) in the rocks of the lower series, between the Cordillera and the Pacific, namely, in granite, syenite, altered feldspathic clay-slate, gneiss, and as near Guasco mica-schist.The copper-ores consist of sulphurets, oxides, and carbonates, sometimes with laminae of native metal: I was assured that in some cases (as at Panuncillo S.E.of Coquimbo), the upper part of the same vein contains oxides, and the lower part sulphurets of copper.(The same fact has been observed by Mr.