For information concerning Skyring Water, we are mainly indebted to Fitzroy's account of the short survey he made in the year 1829, when in command of H.M.S. Beagle (which account comprises information obtained from a sealer named Low, who visited these waters in pursuit of his trade), and to some papers published by the Chilian Government in the Anuario Hydrografico, detailing the results of two visits made by Chilian men-of-war. In November 1877 the Chilian gunboat Magellanes visited Skyring Water, making a stay of three weeks, during which time her boats were mainly employed in making a survey of the eastern part of the basin. The results of this survey, so far as it went, favoured the idea of there being a channel connecting Skyring Water with Smyth's Channel to the westward. It was brought to an abrupt termination by the terrible mutiny which took place at Sandy Point in November 1877; however, in the months of December 1878, and January and February 1879, Captain Latorre, of the corvette Magellanes, made a second incomplete examination of Skyring Water. One of his boat parties penetrated a considerable distance to the westward, where the basin is continuous with a number of long, narrow, winding inlets or channels, which enter the hills of the coast range. Here they met with a party of Fuegians, who were in all respects similar to those of the western channels, possessing the usual canoe and hunting implements. They also found numerous traces of Fuegians in all the sheltered coves which they examined among the inlets towards the western part of Skyring Water. This would seem to indicate a direct water communication with Smyth's Channel, but on the other hand, the range of tide being found to be exceedingly small, would tend to prove that its connection with the ocean was at all events remote. This survey was brought to a close in a most unsatisfactory way when almost on the eve of clearing up the doubtful question as to the existence of through communication; the Magellanes having been ordered north on the outbreak of the war between Chili and Peru.
The Skyring coal mines were originally started in the year 1877 by an enterprising German named Haase, who opened the seam, extracted some coal, and erected sheds, but soon afterwards (I believe through want of funds) abandoned the undertaking, so that when the Chilian corvette Magellanes arrived here in October 1877, the settlement was found to be in a deserted condition. Captain Latorre then made a trial of some coal which he found lying in a heap near the pit's mouth, and after executing a partial survey of Skyring Water was recalled to Sandy Point, on receiving news of a disastrous mutiny in that colony.
The settlement remained uninhabited from a few months before the Magellanes' first visit until the 15th of November, 1879, when the mine was reopened by Mr. Haase, provided with money, furnished by a company which had been formed at Buenos Ayres. Since that time the work has progressed steadily, so that the mine and adjoining works are now in a tolerably efficient state. At the time of our visit, the mines and the settlement were in charge of Monsieur Arnaud, a French engineer, Mr. Haase having some days previously gone on a trip to Buenos Ayres. The people numbered about twenty altogether; but as there were as yet no customers to buy the coal, and as consequently no wages had been paid for a long time back, the miners were gradually deserting and making tracks for Sandy Point.
The edge of the coal seam, which is now being worked, was visible in the face of a low cliff on the north-west promontory south of the bay of the mines. The outcrop of the seam is in a north and south direction, and it dips to the south-east at an angle of about 45°. From a cursory examination which I made of sections afforded by the cliffs adjoining the mines, I ascertained that the coal was overlain by a bed of clayey sandstone, overlying which was a stratum of hard limestone containing fossil shells, among which large Ostræas were the most conspicuous. Above this, and lying conformably to it, was a layer of soft sandstone containing numerous comminuted fragments of shells in a sub-fossil state. The coal seam itself was about twelve feet thick.
The mine seemed to be in a most efficient state. A pit, sunk obliquely, descended to a depth of thirty-six feet, where it communicated with a horizontal cutting about sixty yards in length. At the end of this gallery the coal was being worked, whence it was conveyed in trolleys to the foot of the pit, and then hauled up the incline by means of a stationary engine working at the pit's mouth. From there a line of tram rails extended about 150 yards to the end of a strong wooden mole, where the water was deep enough to float heavy barges, and where a large pile was stored under a shed, and ready for shipment. It was of good black colour, but light and friable; very much resembling the Lota coal, to which it was little inferior in quality. A sample was taken on board, and submitted to various practical tests, by Mr. Dinwoodie, our chief engineer. It was of jet-black colour, and glistening appearance; leaving a faint black mark on rubbing. S.G. = 1·3. It contained sulphur and iron, burned with very little smoke, and produced a rust-coloured ash, which formed a proportion of 18 per cent. When used in the furnace, it formed large caky masses of a hard tenacious clinker, which adhered to the fire-bars, and so clogged the fires that it was found impossible to raise steam to more than thirty pounds' pressure. In an open grate it burnt freely enough, but without giving out much heat. It was, therefore, unsuited for engines using high pressure steam such as ours.
We were much disappointed on learning that game was now very scarce in the immediate vicinity of the settlement, and that as a matter of fact the miners were victualled on salt and preserved meats. Beyond a range of five miles, deer, guanacos, ostriches, and wild cattle might be had, but could not be taken without the aid of horses, with which useful animals the settlers were at present (apparently through pecuniary embarrassments) unprovided. Foxes were abundant in the forest, and at night time prowled about the settlement, while recently a puma had paid it a nocturnal visit, to the great alarm of the pigs and other domestic animals. We walked into the "camp," to a distance of about five miles from the settlement, and were surprised at the scarcity of birds. We saw, however, a flock of black-necked swans, numbering about sixty, in the water near the seashore, but found them too wary for us. A paroquet, a few starlings, a finch, a wren, a buzzard, and the ubiquitous cinclodes were the only land-birds seen. On subsequently penetrating into the forest in the rear of the settlement, I saw many examples of a bird of the "tree-creeper" family, which the Chilians call "carpintero," from its habit of making a "tap-tap" sound when digging its bill against the bark of trees, in pursuit of the insect-larva on which it feeds. These birds behave in many respects like wood-peckers, producing a similar noise, using the same food, travelling over the boles of the trees in a spiral fashion, and creeping with ease along the under surface of horizontal branches. I shot two of them when in the position last-mentioned, and noticed that for some seconds after they had been shot they remained suspended by the legs, with the heads hanging vertically downwards, until the complete relaxation of the muscles allowed them to fall. The toes, of which there are three directed forwards and one backwards, are furnished with long and sharp claws. The bill is long, stout, and pyramidal, and the shafts of the tail-feathers project beyond the webs.
On the 7th of March, a small party of us got the use of one of the steam-cutters, and made a trip to Altamirano Bay, an anchorage about seven miles to the westward of the "bay of the mines," which was originally explored and surveyed by the Chilian vessel Magellanes. We reached the bay after steaming for two hours against a westerly breeze and chopping sea, and landed on its western shore. Here we found an open grass-land interspersed with clumps of low trees and bushes, among which the most abundant were an embothrium, a panax, an escallonia, a berberis, a cheilobothrium, and the black currant of Magellan—the Ribes magellanica. The tree-clumps showed evident signs of their being the resting-places of wild cattle and horses, of which we saw also numerous tracks in the open; none, however, being of recent date. We could find no fresh water of any kind, and therefore concluded that the deer, guanacos, ostriches, and horses, which were reported to be abundant here, had gone up the hills during this dry season, and only resorted to the lowlands hereabouts during the winter time. There was certainly splendid pasturage for them, and I was much struck by the abundance and variety of the grasses. The land-birds were similar to those noticed previously in the neighbourhood of the coal mines. The plain of grass-covered land over which we walked seemed to extend for a long way to the westward, but from the head of the bay a dense forest of beech-trees stretched away to the northward.
Skirting the shore of the bay, although overgrown with scrub and forest, were two distinct terraced levels, which testified to an upraising of the land. The rock formation, as far as could be judged from the rock in situ visible on the foreshore, was a clayey sandstone, devoid of fossils, and bedded horizontally. Erratic boulders of syenite and gneiss—some of considerable size—lay scattered about the beach.
The shores of the bay indicated a scanty littoral marine fauna. Shells of a small mussel were sparsely strewn about, and were the only molluscan remains noticed. The débris of a small, reddish alga was strewn along the beach in undulating lines; but no kelp was seen at all, either on the shore or adhering to submerged rocks.
During our four hours' stay, very little change was noticed in the level of the tide, an argument rather against the likelihood of a channel existing to connect Skyring Water with the ocean to the westward.