In prosecuting the survey of the Trinidad Channel, we anchored, for short periods each time, at a great many ports on its northern and southern shores; and in crossing and re-crossing the channel we ran lines of soundings which enabled us to ascertain roughly the general conformation of its bed. Across the seaward entrance of the channel, i.e., from Cape Gamboa on the north to Port Henry on the south, the soundings gave a mean depth of thirty fathoms, showing the existence of a sort of bar, while one mile inside of this the depth increased to two and three hundred fathoms. This was just as we expected; the bar across the entrance representing the terminal moraine of the huge glacier which originally gouged out the channel, and whose denuding action is abundantly recorded in the scorings, planings, and striations so palpable on all the hard rocks of these inhospitable shores.

At Port Henry, on the southern side of the entrance to the channel, we anchored several times. The scenery here is very grand. A clay-slate rock enters largely into the formation of the hills, its highly inclined strata forming jagged peaks and ridges of great height; while the low-lying rock about the coast is a friable syenite traversed with dikes of greenstone. Immediately to the south of our anchorage was a lofty ridge of clay-slate hills, terminating above in a multitude of vertical columns of rock, which from our position on board reminded us of a cluster of organ pipes, and suggested the name which now appears on the chart, of the "Organ-pipe Range." The aspect of the vegetation is also different from that of other ports in these waters, owing to the abundance of a veronica (V. decussata), which forms large glossy-green bushes, covered with a profusion of snow-white flowers, and so varies the otherwise monotonously green appearance of the beech forest.

Only one party of natives was here seen. They at first approached us very stealthily, paddling between the small islands off the eastern entrance of the harbour, and after the usual interchange of signals (waving of green boughs and caps), they came alongside. The boat was similar in construction and size to those already examined at Tom Bay and elsewhere; but we were now greatly struck at perceiving what a load it could accommodate; for there were in it sixteen natives and six dogs, besides provisions, weapons, and camp furniture. The party consisted of three men, five women, and eight children; and although they pulled only three oars (the women never taking part in this work), yet they managed to get along at a fair pace. On their arrival they were partially clad in seal skins; but in their eagerness to barter with our seamen, for knives, tobacco, and such treasures, they soon divested themselves of all artificial garb, and appeared in a state of nature. It was noticed that the males, who conducted the barter, compelled the women to give up their scanty covering. In the way of provisions, the boat contained a supply of large trumpet shells (Concholepas) in rush baskets, and the drinking water was carried in little bark buckets. They encamped near us for the night, but disappeared unaccountably the next day.

On our exploring the islets just mentioned, we found a large deserted encampment, in which we counted the remains of nine native huts. The refuse-heaps contained a good many seal and whale bones, besides echinoderms, limpet and trumpet shells, the latter shell here taking the place of the mussel. The trumpet shell (Concholepas) is found about the entrance of the Trinidad Channel, inhabiting rocky places immediately below low-water mark on the weather (i.e., the west) side of islets which are exposed to the heavy wash of the outer ocean. I have not seen the shell south of this latitude. The brown duck (Anas cristata) was here tolerably abundant, and with the ashy-headed Brent goose, and the two species of oyster-catcher, were in great request with our sportsmen, being the only edible birds worth mentioning in the western channels.

From Port Henry we shifted our base of operations to Wolsey Sound, the next inlet to the eastward. Here we anchored in an apparently well-sheltered cove, surrounded by lofty hills, but which we soon found to our cost to be a sort of aerial maelstrom. A strong westerly gale was blowing over the hill-tops, as we could see by the fast-flying clouds; while below at the anchorage we experienced a succession of fierce squalls (williwaws) from various quarters, with intervals of complete calm; so that the ship kept swinging to and fro, and circling round her anchors in a most erratic manner. Eventually one of the cables parted; but with the other, aided by steam, we managed to ride out the gale, and to thoroughly satisfy ourselves that Wolsey Sound was not one of the anchorages to be recommended to passing vessels. From the translation given in "Burney's Voyages," (vol. ii., p. 10), of the journal of Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, who discovered the Trinidad Channel in the year 1580, it would appear that this is the same anchorage which his sailors named "Cache Diablo" (devil's box-on-the-ear), from the boisterous nature of the reception which they experienced.

On the east side of Wolsey Sound the rock of the mountain masses is for the most part a hard grey unfossiliferous limestone, irregularly stratified, but sometimes showing a dip of 10° or 15° to the westward. The most striking peculiarity of this rock consists in its solubility under the influence of both fresh and salt water, and it is this property that so often causes it to present a jagged honeycombed appearance. I noticed that in many places fresh-water streams, running over bare patches of this rock, had eaten away narrow gutter channels, and that in other places where a broad sheet of water flowed slowly—as from a turf bank—over a long gently-sloping table of rock, an incrustation of hard calcareous matter had been deposited, presenting a sort of "ripple-marked" appearance, and reminding one of the effect produced when a film of slowly-moving water is submitted to the influence of intense cold. When viewed from a distance, the limestone hills presented a whitish bleached appearance, which contrasted strangely with the sombre hues of the other greenstone and syenite hills. Of this description was "Silvertop," a lofty and conspicuous mountain on the south side of the Trinidad Channel, which was frequently used by our surveyors as a landmark.

The next port to the eastward is Rosario Bay. It was named by Sarmiento "Puerto de Nuestra SeÑora del Rosario." The rock formation here is limestone, and of the kind above mentioned, but the effects of frequent rain in washing away the more soluble parts of the rock were not only manifested by the honeycombed appearance of exposed surfaces, but also by the prevalence of caves of most irregular shape. Soon after we had anchored, Sub-Lieutenant Beresford and I, who had gone away in the skiff, were paddling around an islet with lofty and precipitous sides, when we noticed in the face of a bare rocky cliff a suspicious-looking dark opening, partly blocked up with stones, and situated about thirty feet above the sea level. We ran the boat alongside the rocks, and Beresford kept her from bumping while I climbed up the cliff to reconnoitre. On clearing away a heap of stones and rubbish, I laid bare a sort of niche in the rock, in which were portions of a human skeleton, the long bones lying together in a compact bundle, as if they had been so placed there when in the dried state. Not many yards from this crevice we soon discovered a small cave in the rock, and partly imbedded in the soil which formed its floor were a human jaw-bone and fragments of smaller bones. On excavating the floor of the cave we found it to consist of a stiff pasty greyish-white marl-clay, abounding in small shells, amongst which were species of the genera Patella, Fissurella, Chiton, and CalyptrÆa. On reaching a depth of about one foot, we came upon a nearly complete human skull of immature age, an otter skull with bones of the same, and the tooth of an Echinus. The human bones obtained were part of the skeletons of two individuals, one of whom must have been young, for the epiphyses of the long bones were not quite cemented to the shafts. I noticed that the skull presented a completely ossified frontal suture, although, from the nature of the teeth and alveoli, the person to whom it belonged could not have lived for more than twelve years or thereabouts. A tibia found in the first depÔt bore marks of having been chopped by some sharp cutting instrument. From the fact of these bones being found interbedded with marine deposits, coupled with what we know of these islands having been elevated within recent times—I here refer to the evidence afforded by raised beaches and old high-water marks in the faces of cliffs—there is reason to believe that these bones were deposited in the cave at a time when it was under water, that they thus became surrounded by and imbedded in an ordinary marine shallow water deposit, and that eventually, on the island being elevated so as to raise the cave to its present position—thirty feet above sea level—the surface deposit was reinforced by the percolation of lime-charged water from the rock above, thus resulting in the formation of the marl-clay surface-layer above mentioned.

We made different attempts at dredging, but as the bottom was everywhere very rocky and the dredge in consequence continually getting foul, we were not successful in obtaining many objects of interest. However, among them there were specimens of a hydroid stony coral representing two species of the genus Labiopora—one of which Mr. Stuart Ridley of the British Museum has ascertained to be a species new to science—and a fine orange-coloured Astrophyton of a new species, recently described by Mr. F. J. Bell as A. lymani.

On the north side of the Trinidad Channel we stopped for a time at an anchorage near Cape Gamboa, which forms the north headland of the entrance. At Cape Gamboa the rock is a clay-slate showing distinct stratification, containing concretions of a whitish sandstone, and dipping to the N.E. at an angle of about 45°. To the eastward of Cape Gamboa is a limestone similar to that of the south shore. We did some dredging here on a smooth sandy bottom, the principal results of which were specimens of the ChimÆra (Callorhynchus australis), and some curious Isopod Crustaceans of the genus Serolis. Another day (March 28th) when sounding across the entrance of the Channel, we made a heave of the trawl in thirty fathoms with most fruitful results, obtaining a magnificent specimen of the orange-coloured Astrophyton (A. lymani), several small rays and flat fish, large Actinia, a new Crustacean of the genus Arcturus, starfishes, and a Cephalopod Mollusc of the genus Rossia. On the evening of this day we were fortunate enough to witness a most beautiful sunset effect. As the sun disappeared from a western olive-tinted sky it seemed to be followed in its descent by several horizontal bands of delicate rose-tinted stratus clouds, which extended themselves in parallel lines over an arc of 45°, and finally tapered away into the most delicate threads of silvery light. In the east the dark purple-tinted clouds melted upwards into the grey gloom of approaching night, and foreshadowed to us the advent of another day of sunshine in this the only really fine and summer month in these western channels.

At the head of Francisco Bay—which was the name subsequently given to this anchorage—at the outlet of a small river, we one day made a very large "take" of fish in a somewhat singular manner. A trammel net had been placed across the mouth of the stream at high tide, and on the tide falling had been examined and found to contain a fair number of fish (mackerel). Some hours later two of our people were wading up the river, and on coming to a depression in its bed, which was at about the limit to which the tidal salt-water reached, they found an immense collection of half-dead and living mackerel in a pool, in which—the tide being then rather low—the water was almost entirely fresh. Here they caught, with their hands, fish enough to fill a boat, amounting to a gross weight of 4 cwt. The probable explanation of this lucky "take" seems to be that the fish entered the mouth of the river with the flood tide—as is their wont—and on attempting to retreat with the ebb found their return to the sea barred by our net, and instead of endeavouring to pass through the meshes preferred to move back into the brackish water of the river. Here, as the tide fell still further and laid bare banks of sand stretching across the stream, they became shut off altogether from the sea, and at dead low tide the flow of fresh water so predominated over the salt as to render them helplessly stupid, so that they fell an easy prey to our sailors.

On the shores of this bay I came across a magnificent Winter's bark tree, the largest which I have ever seen in the channels. Its smooth and almost cylindrical stem was nine feet in circumference, and ran up without branching to a height of thirty feet from the ground.

In cruising to and fro about the channel we frequently came across whales. They were usually either "finners" or "sperms"; more commonly the former. I saw only one "right" whale during the many months which we spent in these waters. On the 17th of February we steamed by a school of about twenty "finner" whales, and shortly after we passed through a shoal of small red shrimps (Galatheas), which were so densely clustered together as to give the water quite a scarlet appearance. This accounted for the great gathering of Cetaceans. Skeletons of whales in a very imperfect state were abundant about the shores of this channel, and many were of large size. On the shore of Francisco Bay I saw lower jaw bones which measured eleven feet from condyle to symphysis. I looked, but in vain, for remains of the Ziphioid Whales.

Some few miles to the eastward of Francisco Bay a deep inlet pierced Wellington Island in a northerly direction. We were anxious to explore it, as we thought it not unlikely that it might prove to be a navigable passage, connecting Trinidad Channel with the Gulf of PeÑas. At length an opportunity occurred, and on a fine morning in the month of March we steamed into this unsurveyed inlet. On fairly passing the southern entrance, we found ourselves traversing a lane of water of such glassy smoothness, and bordered by such straight running shores, which were not more than half-a-mile apart, as to seem more like an inland canal than (which it eventually proved to be) a strait leading through a nest of breakers to an inhospitable ocean. Its eastern shore exhibited the kind of scenery prevailing about the Guia Narrows; viz., round-topped hills with great bare patches of rain-worn rock extending from the summits to a talus, which was covered with an uniform mantle of evergreen forest, the latter encroaching upon the sea-beach. But the country to the west presented a more pleasing variety, being composed of low undulating slopes of grassy-looking land, with here and there fissures or landslips exhibiting what seemed to us, as we scrutinized them with our glasses, to be sections of a sedimentary formation. We had hitherto seen nothing like this anywhere among the western channels, and consequently I for one was extremely anxious to land. However, the captain had to make the most of daylight for the surveying work in hand, so that our conjectures as to the nature of this formation remained unverified. When we had attained a distance of twenty-five miles from the southern entrance of the Strait, the western shore was found to be broken up into a chain of low islets, which in time dwindled away into a great arc of submerged rocks, over which the swell of the broad Pacific broke with great fury. This then was the end of what is now known as the Picton Channel, and bold would be the mariner who would attempt to traverse it, and thread his way through such a maze of reefs and breakers. Among the islets at this, its northern extremity, we found an anchorage, where we decided on stopping for the night. As we cast anchor, a native boat approached, carrying no less than twenty-three inmates, most of whom were males, and of a most savage and treacherous appearance. They had with them several young fur seals, recently killed, which they were glad to barter for tobacco or biscuit. After stopping alongside for about half-an-hour, they paddled away and were seen no more. On the following day we steamed back.

The rocky shores and islets of the Trinidad Channel bear abundant indications of old ice action. These marks are not very apparent on the coarse-grained friable syenite which is the common rock of the district, but on the dikes of hard greenstone, with which the syenite is frequently intersected, scorings and striations of typical character may be seen. Close to the anchorage in Port Charrua, on the north side of the channel, there is a broad band of greenstone on which I observed very perfect examples of "crosshatchings," where the prevailing east to west striÆ were intersected by those of another system at an angle of about 40°. These rock erosions, coupled with what we know from the sounding-lead as to the contour of the sea-bottom, lead us to infer that the Trinidad Channel was at some remote period the bed of a huge glacier, which flowed westward from the Cordillera. That most, indeed, of the other straits and channels of Western Patagonia were also at one time occupied by glaciers is clearly testified by the markings on the rocks.

There is a peculiar form of syenite rock not uncommon in exposed situations on the hill-tops, which is composed of quartz, felspar, and hornblende, the quartz occurring in crystals of about the size of large peas. The felspar, being of a very friable nature, rapidly succumbs to the disintegrating influence of the weather, and crumbles away, taking with it the small particles of hornblende, so that the big quartz crystals, when in the last stage prior to being dislodged, are seen standing out in bold relief from the matrix. When this rock is seen projecting in round bosses, through the turfy soil of a hilltop, it looks at a short distance as if strewn with hailstones; and the illusion is heightened on observing on its leeward side heaps of loose quartz crystals, which have been completely weathered out from the parent rock, and have been drifted by the wind into this comparatively sheltered situation, as would be the case with hailstones under similar circumstances.

But the most characteristic feature in the scenery of the western shores of Patagonia is owing to the phenomenon of "soil motion," an occurrence which is here in a great measure due to the exceptionally wet nature of the climate. This slippage of the soilcap seems in this region to be continually taking place wherever the basement rock presents a moderately inclined surface. Some of the effects of this "soil motion" are apt to be confounded with those due to glacial action, for the soilcap takes with it in its downward progress not only its clothing of trees, ferns, and mosses, but also a "moraine profonde" of rock, stones, and stems of dead trees great and small, whereby the hills are being denuded, and the valleys, lakes, and channels gradually filled up. When we first entered the Western Channels my attention was at once directed to this subject on noticing that the lower branches of trees growing in immediate proximity to the seashore were in many places withering from immersion in the salt water, and that in some cases entire trees had perished prematurely, from their roots having become entirely submerged. On looking more closely into the matter, I noticed that sodden snags of dead trees, mingled with stones, were often to be seen on the bottom of the inshore waters, and that the beds of fresh-water lakes were plentifully strewn with similar fragments of wood, the remains of bygone forests which had perished prematurely. These circumstances are fully explained by the occurrence of soil motion, for as the soilcap by its sliding motion, imparted by gravitation, and aided by expansion and contraction of the spongy mass, reaches the water's edge, the soluble portions are removed, while its more durable contents are left to accumulate at the foot of the incline. In this way rocks and stones may sometimes be seen balanced in odd situations near the sea beach, simulating the "roches perchÉes" which are dropped by a melting iceberg or a receding glacier. These circumstances are all the more interesting from their occurring in a region where the effects of old and recent glacial action are exhibited to a marked degree. Planings, scorings, striations, and "roches moutonnÉes" may, one or other, be almost invariably found wherever the rock is sufficiently impervious to the disintegrating action of the weather to retain these impressions. Thus they are nowhere to be seen on the coarse-grained friable syenite, which is the common rock of the district; but where this rock is intersected by dikes of the more durable greenstone, the above-mentioned signs of former glacial action may be seen well developed. I speak now of old glacial action, because we have not found any glacier existing in the neighbourhood of the Trinidad Channel, from whence they seem to have entirely receded; but they are yet to be seen in the fiords of the mainland further north; and in the main Straits of Magellan we had opportunities of studying fine examples of complete and incomplete glaciers, exhibiting in all its grandeur that wonderful denuding power which these ponderous masses of ice exercise as they move silently over their rocky beds. There are, therefore, in this region, ample opportunities of comparing and differentiating phenomena, which have resulted from former glacial action, and those which are due to soil motion—a force now in operation.

Sir Wyville Thompson (vide "Voyage of Challenger," vol. ii., p. 245) attributes the origin of the celebrated "Stone Runs" of the Falkland Islands to the transporting action of the soilcap, which among other causes derives its motion from alternate expansion and contraction of the spongy mass of peat, due to varying conditions of moisture and comparative dryness; and this hypothesis is to a certain extent supported by the occurrences which I now endeavour to describe. Here, in Western Patagonia, an evergreen arboreal forest, rising through a dense undergrowth of brushwood and mosses, clothes the hillsides to a height of about 1,000 feet, and this mass of vegetation, with its subjacent peaty, swampy soil, resting—as it frequently does—upon a hillside already planed by old ice action, naturally tends, under the influence of gravitation, combined with that of expansion and contraction of the soil, to slide gradually downwards until it meets the sea, lake, or valley, as the case may be. In the two former cases the free edge of the mass is removed by the action of the water, in a manner somewhat analogous to the wasting of the submerged snout of a "complete glacier" in the summer time; whereas in the last instance a chaotic accumulation of all the constituents of the transported mass gradually takes place, thereby tending to an eventual obliteration of the valley. It appears to me that the conditions which are said to have resulted in the formation of the "Stone Runs" of the Falklands here exist in equal if not greater force. There is a thick spongy vegetable mass covering the hillsides, and acted on by varying conditions of extreme moisture and comparative dryness; there are the loose blocks of disintegrating syenite to be transported; and there are mountain torrents, lakes, and sea-channels to remove the soil. That motion of the soilcap does actually take place we have at least strong presumptive evidence; but anything resembling a "stone run" remains yet to be discovered. It would naturally suggest itself to the reader that the above phenomenon attributed to soil motion might be accounted for by a slow and gradual depression of the land, and I have carefully sought for evidence favouring this view, but have found no reliable sign whatever of subsidence; while on the other hand one sees raised beaches and stones testifying to the ravages of stone-boring molluscs at heights above the present high-water marks, which indicate that even elevation of the land has taken place.

On May 6th, the winter season having then fairly set in, we bade adieu for a while to our surveying ground, and commenced our northern voyage to Valparaiso. Our course lay first through the sheltered channels which separate Wellington Island from the mainland. As we rounded Topar Island and entered Wide Channel, the heavy mist which had been hanging around us all the morning, almost concealing the land from sight, lifted at intervals like a veil, and exposed to view the noble cliffs of bare greenstone rock which hemmed us in on either side,—here and there streaked down their faces by long slender cascades of water, extending from summit to base, and seeming to hang over us like glistening threads of silver. On passing the southern outlet of Icy Reach, we saw shining in the distance the sloping tongue-shaped extremity of one of the Eyre Sound glaciers, whose bergs float out through Icy Reach in the winter time and sometimes prove a serious obstruction to navigation in these gloomy and mysterious channels. In Chasm Reach, which we next traversed, the hills on either side rose nearly perpendicularly to a height of 1,500 feet, their snow-capped summits contrasting grandly with the sombre tints of their rocky sides; so scantily clad with vegetation as to seem at a distance mere sloping walls of rock.

In the narrowest part of this "reach," where the width was only about half-a-mile, three native huts were seen established on low projecting shelves of rock, and situated about a mile apart. To these our attention was attracted by the long curling wreaths of grey smoke ascending from their fires. As darkness was coming on, we did not stop to examine them, but steamed on towards Port Grappler, where we anchored for the night.

We got under way early in the morning of the following day, and proceeded through the channel as far as Hoskyn Cove, an anchorage just to the northward of the famous English Narrows. The morning had been hazy and showery, but towards noon the mist cleared away, and as we passed the English Narrows, a burst of sunshine completed the dispersion of the hazy vapour and lighted up a scene of surpassing splendour. The scenery here contrasted strangely with that of Chasm Reach, for the steep hillsides now were richly clothed with a luxuriant growth of primeval forest, and rising to a greater altitude, had their summits capped with a broad mantle of snow, which showed to great advantage against the deep blue of the sky. In the narrowest part of the channel, where the flood tide was making southward in a rapid stream, numbers of fur seals were gambolling in the water, and the energetic movements of the cormorants testified to the abundance of the fish.

Formerly the vessels of the Pacific Steam Navigation Company were in the habit of running through these "Narrows," but of late years the practice has been discontinued, on account of the difficulty of managing the long vessels which are now in vogue. Therefore, excepting an occasional man-of-war, the only vessels which at the present day make use of the channels leading to the Gulf of PeÑas are the steamers of the German "Kosmos" line. The deciduous beech (Fagus antarctica) here formed a great proportion of the forest growth, and as its leaves were now withering, their autumn tints gave a variegated character to the wooded scenery, a feature not observed farther south, where the evergreen beech (Fagus betuloides) predominates. The Campsidium chilense, a large trailing plant, was abundant and in full bloom, its flowering branches usually depending in rather inaccessible places from the upper parts of the trees to which it clung; and here we obtained for the first time specimens of the loveliest of South American ferns, the Hymenophyllum cruentum.

The morning of the 8th May broke wet and gloomy as we got under way and initiated the next stage on our journey. All day long the rain fell in torrents, and a fresh northerly breeze, blowing right in our teeth, raised a heavy, chopping sea, which made the old ship heave uneasily, and gave us a sort of foretaste of what we should have to encounter next day on emerging from the Gulf of PeÑas into the troubled waters of the Pacific. Steaming thus against wind and sea, we made such slow progress that night had fairly come on us when we crept under shelter of the lofty hills which overshadow Island Harbour.

On the following morning we entered the open sea, and steered for Valparaiso.