The Voyage of the Beagle - The Original Classic Edition. Darwin Charles

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ the margin is from four to five inches thick, but towards the centre its thickness increases. This

       112

       lake was two and a half miles long, and one broad. Others occur in the neighbourhood many times larger, and with a floor of salt, two and three feet in thickness, even when under water during the

       winter. One of these brilliantly white and level expanses, in the

       midst of the brown and desolate plain, offers an extraordinary spectacle. A large quantity of salt is annually drawn from the salina: and great piles, some hundred tons in weight, were lying ready for exportation.

       The season for working the salinas forms the harvest of Patagones; for on it the prosperity of the place depends. Nearly the whole population encamps on the bank of the river, and the people are employed in drawing out the salt in bullock-waggons. This salt is crystallised in great cubes, and is remarkably pure: Mr. Trenham Reeks has kindly analysed some for me, and he finds in it only 0.26 of gypsum and 0.22 of earthy matter. It is a singular fact that it

       does not serve so well for preserving meat as sea-salt from the

       Cape de Verd islands; and a merchant at Buenos Ayres told me that he considered it as fifty per cent less valuable. Hence the Cape de Verd salt is constantly imported, and is mixed with that from these salinas. The purity of the Patagonian salt, or absence from it of those other saline bodies found in all sea-water, is the only assignable cause for this inferiority: a conclusion which no one, I think, would have suspected, but which is supported by the fact lately ascertained, that those salts answer best for preserving

       cheese which contain most of the deliquescent chlorides. (4/3. Report of the Agricultural Chemistry Association in the "Agricultural Gazette" 1845 page 93.)

       113

       The border of the lake is formed of mud: and in this numerous large crystals of gypsum, some of which are three inches long, lie

       embedded; whilst on the surface others of sulphate of soda lie

       scattered about. The Gauchos call the former the "Padre del sal," and the latter the "Madre;" they state that these progenitive salts always occur on the borders of the salinas, when the water begins to evaporate. The mud is black, and has a fetid odour. I could not at first imagine the cause of this, but I afterwards perceived that

       the froth which the wind drifted on shore was coloured green, as if by confervae; I attempted to carry home some of this green matter, but from an accident failed. Parts of the lake seen from a short distance appeared of a reddish colour, and this perhaps was owing

       to some infusorial animalcula. The mud in many places was thrown up by numbers of some kind of worm, or annelidous animal. How surprising it is that any creatures should be able to exist in

       brine, and that they should be crawling among crystals of sulphate

       of soda and lime! And what becomes of these worms when, during the

       long summer, the surface is hardened into a solid layer of salt?

       Flamingoes in considerable numbers inhabit this lake, and breed

       here, throughout Patagonia, in Northern Chile, and at the Galapagos

       Islands, I met with these birds wherever there were lakes of brine. I saw them here wading about in search of food--probably for the worms which burrow in the mud; and these latter probably feed on infusoria or confervae. Thus we have a little living world within itself, adapted to these inland lakes of brine. A minute

       crustaceous animal (Cancer salinus) is said to live in countless numbers in the brine-pans at Lymington: but only in those in which the fluid has attained, from evaporation, considerable

       114

       strength--namely, about a quarter of a pound of salt to a pint of water. (4/4. "Linnaean Transactions" volume 11 page 205. It is remarkable how all the circumstances connected with the salt-lakes in Siberia and Patagonia are similar. Siberia, like Patagonia,

       appears to have been recently elevated above the waters of the sea. In both countries the salt-lakes occupy shallow depressions in the

       plains; in both the mud on the borders is black and fetid; beneath

       the crust of common salt, sulphate of soda or of magnesia occurs, imperfectly crystallised; and in both, the muddy sand is mixed with lentils of gypsum. The Siberian salt-lakes are inhabited by small crustaceous animals; and flamingoes ("Edinburgh New Philosical Journal" January 1830) likewise frequent them. As these circumstances, apparently so trifling, occur in two distant continents, we may feel sure that they are the necessary results of common causes.--See "Pallas's Travels" 1793 to 1794 pages 129 to

       134.) Well may we affirm that every part of the world is habitable! Whether lakes of brine, or those subterranean ones hidden beneath volcanic mountains--warm mineral springs--the wide expanse and depths of the ocean--the upper regions of the atmosphere, and even the surface of perpetual snow--all support organic beings.

       To the northward of the Rio Negro, between it and the inhabited country near Buenos Ayres, the Spaniards have only one small settlement, recently established at Bahia Blanca. The distance in a straight line to Buenos Ayres is very nearly five hundred British miles. The wandering tribes of horse Indians, which have always occupied the greater part of this country, having of late much harassed the outlying estancias, the government at Buenos Ayres

       equipped some time since an army under the command of General Rosas

       115

       for the purpose of exterminating them. The troops were now encamped

       on the banks of the Colorado; a river lying about eighty miles

       northward of the Rio Negro. When General Rosas left Buenos Ayres he

       struck in a direct line across the unexplored plains: and as the country was thus pretty well cleared of Indians, he left behind him, at wide intervals, a small party of soldiers with a troop of horses (a posta), so as to be enabled to keep up a communication with the capital. As the "Beagle" intended to call at Bahia Blanca,

       I determined to proceed there by land; and ultimately I extended my

       plan to travel the whole way by the postas to Buenos Ayres.

       AUGUST 11, 1833.

       Mr. Harris, an Englishman residing at Patagones, a guide, and five Gauchos who were proceeding to the army on business, were my companions on the journey. The Colorado, as I have already said, is nearly eighty miles distant: and as we travelled slowly, we were

       two days and a half on the road. The whole line of country deserves scarcely a better name than that of a desert. Water is found only

       in two small wells; it is called fresh; but even at this time of

       the year, during the rainy season, it was quite brackish. In the summer this must be a distressing passage; for now it was sufficiently desolate.

       The valley of the Rio Negro, broad as it is, has merely been

       excavated out of the sandstone plain; for immediately above the

       bank on which the town stands, a level country commences, which is

       interrupted only by a few trifling valleys and depressions. Everywhere the landscape СКАЧАТЬ