This passage is formed by a deep gorge, cleft between lofty walls over which many a waterfall foams from reservoirs of snow above. Agassiz observed two old glacier beds on the western side of the pass—two shallow depressions, lying arid and scored between swelling wooded ridges. He had not met in all the journey a better locality for the study of glacial effects than here. The sides of the channel show these traces throughout their whole length. In this same neighborhood, as a conspicuous foreground on the shore of Indian Reach, to the south of Lackawanna Cove, is a large moraine resembling the "horse-backs," in the State of Maine, New England. The top was as level as a railroad embankment. The anchorage for the night was in Eden Harbor, and for that evening, at least, it was lovely enough to deserve its name. The whole expanse of its land-locked waters, held between mountains and broken by islands, was rosy and purple in the setting sun. The gates of the garden were closed, however, not by a flaming sword, but by an impenetrable forest, along the edge of which a scanty rim of beach hardly afforded landing or foothold. The collections here, therefore, were small; but a good haul was made with the trawl net, which gathered half-a-dozen species of echinoderms, some small fishes, and a number of shells. Fog detained the vessel in Eden Harbor till a late hour in the morning, but the afternoon was favorable for the passage through the English Narrows, the most contracted part of Smythe's Channel. It is, indeed, a mere mountain defile, through which the water rushes with such force that, in navigating it, great care was required to keep the vessel off the rocks. Her anchorage at the close of the day was in Connor's Cove, a miniature harbor not unlike Borja Bay in the Strait. It was a tranquil retreat. The water-birds seemed to find it so, for the steamer ducks were trailing their long wakes through the water, and a large kind of stormy petrel sailed up to the vessel, and almost put himself into the hands of the sailors, with whom he remained an unresisting prisoner.
Geologically, Agassiz found Connor's Cove of especial interest. It runs east and west, opening on the eastern side of the channel; but the knolls, that is to say, the rounded surfaces at its entrance, are furrowed across the cove, at right angles with it. In other words, the movement of the ice, always from south to north, has been with Smythe's Channel, and across the Strait of Magellan. Indeed it seemed to Agassiz that all the glacial agency in Smythe's Channel, the trend of the furrows, the worn surfaces whereon they were to be found, and the steepness of southern exposures as compared with the more rounded opposite slopes, pointed to the same conclusion.
On the third of April Agassiz left with regret this region of ocean and mountain, glacier, snow-field, and forest. The weeks he had spent there were all too short for the work he had hoped to do. Yet, trained as he was in glacial phenomena, even so cursory an observation satisfied him that in the southern, as in the northern hemisphere, the present glaciers are but a remnant of the ancient ice-period.
After two days of open sea and head winds, the next anchorage was in Port San Pedro, a very beautiful bay opening on the north side of Corcovado Gulf, with snow mountains in full sight; the Peak of Corcovado and a wonderfully symmetrical volcanic mountain, Melimoya, white as purest marble to the summit, were clearly defined against the sky. Forests clothed the shore on every side, and the shelving beach met the wood in a bank of wild Bromelia, most brilliant in color. Not only were excellent collections made on this beach, but the shore was strewn with large accumulations of erratics. Among them was a green epidotic rock which Agassiz had traced to this spot from the Bay of San Antonio on the Patagonian coast, without ever finding it in place. Some of the larger boulders had glacial furrows and scratches upon them, and all the hills bordering the shore were rounded and moutonnee. One of the great charms for Agassiz in the scenery of all this region, and especially in the Strait of Magellan, was a kind of home feeling that it gave him. Although the mountains rose from the ocean, instead of from the plain as in Switzerland, yet the snow-fields and the glaciers carried him back to his youth. To him, the sunset of this evening in the Port San Pedro, with the singular transparent rose color over the snow mountains, and the soft succeeding pallor, was the very reproduction of an Alpine sunset.
The next morning brought a disappointment. From this point Agassiz had hoped to continue the voyage by the inside passage between the main-land and the island of Chiloe. This was of importance to him, on account of its geological relation to Smythe's Channel and the Strait of Magellan. In the absence of any good charts of the channel, the Captain, after examining the shoals at the entrance, was forced to decide, almost as much to his own regret as to that of Agassiz, not to attempt the further passage. Keeping up the outer coast of Chiloe, therefore, the vessel anchored before Ancud on the 8th of April. It was a heavenly day. The volcanic peak of Osorno and the whole snowy Cordilleras were unveiled. The little town above the harbor, with its outlying farms on the green and fertile hills around, seemed like the very centre of civilization to people who had been so long out of the world. It is said to rain in Ancud three hundred and sixty-five days in the year. But on this particular afternoon it was a very sunny place, and the inhabitants seemed to avail themselves of their rare privilege. Groups of Indians, who had come across the river in the morning to sell their milk in the town, were resting in picturesque groups around their empty milk-cans, the women wrapped in their long shawls, the men in their ponchos and slouched hats; the country people were driving out their double teams of strong, powerful oxen harnessed to wooden troughs filled with manure for the fields; the washerwomen were scrubbing and beating their linen along the roadside; the gardens of the poorest houses were bright with large shrubs of wild fuchsia, and, altogether, the aspect of the little place was cheerful and pretty. Agassiz had but two or three hours for a look at the geology. Even this cursory glance sufficed to show him that the drift materials, even to their special mineralogical elements, were the same as in the Magellan Strait. Here they rested, however, on volcanic soil.
Stopping at Lota for coal, but not long enough for any scientific work, the Hassler entered Concepcion Bay on the 15th April, and anchored near Talcahuana, where she was to remain some three weeks for the repair of her engine. This quaint, primitive little town is built upon one of the finest harbors on the Pacific coast. Agassiz was fortunate in finding, through the kindness of Captain Johnson, a partially furnished house, where several large vacant rooms, opening on the "patio," served admirably as scientific laboratories. Here, then, he established himself with his assistants. It was soon understood that every living thing would find a market with him, and all the idle urchins about the town flocked to the house with specimens. An unceasing traffic of birds, shells, fish, etc., went on there from morning to night, and to the various vendors were added groups of Indians coming to have their photographs taken. There were charming excursions and walks in the neighborhood, and the geology of the region was so interesting that it determined Agassiz to go by land from Talcahuana to Valparaiso, on a search after any glacial tracks that might be found in the valley lying between the Cordillera of the Andes and the Coast Range. Meanwhile the Hassler was to go on a dredging expedition to the island of Juan Fernandez, and then proceed to Valparaiso, where Agassiz was to join her a fortnight later. Although this expedition was under the patronage of the Coast Survey, the generosity of Mr. Thayer, so constantly extended to scientific aims, had followed Agassiz on this second journey. To his kindness he owed the possibility of organizing an excursion apart from the direct object of the voyage. This change of plan and its cause is told in the following extract from his general report to Professor Peirce:—
APRIL 27th.
While I was transcribing my Report, Pourtales came in with the statement that he had noticed the first indication of an Andean glacier in the vicinity. I have visited the locality twice since. It is a magnificent polished surface, as well preserved as any I have ever seen upon old glaciated ground or under glaciers of the present day, with well-marked furrows and scratches. Think of it! a characteristic surface, indicating glacier action, in latitude 37 degrees south, at the level of the sea! The place is only a few feet above tide level, upon the slope of a hill on which stand the ruins of a Spanish fort, near the fishermen's huts of San Vicente, which lies between Concepcion Bay and the Bay of Aranco. Whether the polished surface is the work of a glacier descending from the Andes to the sea-shore or not, I have not yet been able to determine. I find no volcanic pebbles or boulders in this vicinity, which, after my experience in San Carlos, I should expect all along the shore, if the glaciers of the Andes had descended to the level of the ocean, in this part of the country. The erratics here have the character of those observed farther south. It is true the furrows and scratches of this polished surface run mainly from east to west; but there are some crossing the main trend, at angles ranging from 20 to 30 degrees, and running south-east-north-west. Moreover, the magnetic variation is 18 degrees 3 degrees at Talcahuano April 23rd, the true meridian bearing to the right of the magnetic. I shall soon know what to make of this, as I start to-morrow for the interior, to go to Santiago and join the ship again at Valparaiso. I have hired a private carriage, to be able to stop whenever I wish so to do. I also take a small seine to fish for fresh water fishes in the many streams intervening between this place and Valparaiso. The trend of the glacial scratches in San Vicente reminds me of a fact I have often observed in New England near the sea-shore, where the glacial furrows dip to a considerable extent eastward toward the deep ocean, while further inland their trend is more regular and due North and South. . .
"I had almost forgotten to say that I have obtained unquestionable evidence of the cretaceous age of the coal deposits of Lota and the adjoining localities, north and south, which are generally supposed to be tertiary lignites. They are overlaid by sandstone containing Baculites! I need not adduce other evidence to satisfy geologists of the correctness of my assertion. I have myself collected a great many of these fossils, in beds resting upon coal-seams. Ever truly yours,