The plain marked 355 feet (as ascertained by the barometer and by angular measurement) is a continuation of the above-mentioned 330 feet plain: it extends in a N.W.direction along the southern shores of the estuary.It is capped by gravel, which in most parts is covered by a thin bed of sandy earth, and is scooped out by many flat-bottomed valleys.It appears to the eye quite level, but in proceeding in a S.S.W.course, towards an escarpment distant about six miles, and likewise ranging across the country in a N.W.line, it was found to rise at first insensibly, and then for the last half-mile, sensibly, close up to the base of the escarpment: at this point it was 463 feet in height, showing a rise of 108 feet in the six miles.On this 355-463 feet plain, I found several shells of Mytilus Magellanicus and of a Mytilus, which Mr.Sowerby informs me is yet unnamed, though well-known as recent on this coast; Patella deaurita; Fusus, Ibelieve, Magellanicus, but the specimen has been lost; and at the distance of four miles from the coast, at the height of about four hundred feet, there were fragments of the same Patella and of a Voluta (apparently V.
ancilla) partially embedded in the superficial sandy earth.All these shells had the same ancient appearance with those from the foregoing localities.As the tides along this part of the coast rise at the Syzygal period forty feet, and therefore form a well-marked beach-line, Iparticularly looked out for ridges in crossing this plain, which, as we have seen, rises 108 feet in about six miles, but I could not see any traces of such.The next highest plain is 710 feet above the sea; it is very narrow, but level, and is capped with gravel; it abuts to the foot of the 840 feet plain.This summit-plain extends as far as the eye can range, both inland along the southern side of the valley of the Santa Cruz, and southward along the Atlantic.
THE VALLEY OF THE R.SANTA CRUZ.
This valley runs in an east and west direction to the Cordillera, a distance of about one hundred and sixty miles.It cuts through the great Patagonian tertiary formation, including, in the upper half of the valley, immense streams of basaltic lava, which as well as the softer beds, are capped by gravel; and this gravel, high up the river, is associated with a vast boulder formation.(I have described this formation in a paper in the "Geological Transactions" volume 6 page 415.) In ascending the valley, the plain which at the mouth on the southern side is 355 feet high, is seen to trend towards the corresponding plain on the northern side, so that their escarpments appear like the shores of a former estuary, larger than the existing one: the escarpments, also, of the 840 feet summit-plain (with a corresponding northern one, which is met with some way up the valley), appear like the shores of a still larger estuary.Farther up the valley, the sides are bounded throughout its entire length by level, gravel-capped terraces, rising above each other in steps.The width between the upper escarpments is on an average between seven and ten miles; in one spot, however, where cutting through the basaltic lava, it was only one mile and a half.Between the escarpments of the second highest terrace the average width is about four or five miles.The bottom of the valley, at the distance of 110 miles from its mouth, begins sensibly to expand, and soon forms a considerable plain, 440 feet above the level of the sea, through which the river flows in a gut from twenty to forty feet in depth.I here found, at a point 140 miles from the Atlantic, and seventy miles from the nearest creek of the Pacific, at the height of 410 feet, a very old and worn shell of Patella deaurita.Lower down the valley, 105 miles from the Atlantic (longitude 71 degrees W.), and at an elevation of about 300 feet, I also found, in the bed of the river, two much worn and broken shells of the Voluta ancilla, still retaining traces of their colours; and one of the Patella deaurita.It appeared that these shells had been washed from the banks into the river; considering the distance from the sea, the desert and absolutely unfrequented character of the country, and the very ancient appearance of the shells (exactly like those found on the plains nearer the coast), there is, I think, no cause to suspect that they could have been brought here by Indians.