Page:Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, Volume 1 (2nd edition).djvu/200

174 inches. The range for the first being 1·331 inches, and for the last 2·226 inches.

The eastern coast of Patagonia, from the entrance of the Strait of Magalhaens to the River Plate, is comparatively low. From Cape Virgins to Port St. Julian, where porphyritic claystone commences, the coast is formed of clay cliffs, horizontally stratified, and the country is undulating, with extensive plains, or pampas; covered with grass, but without trees. At Port St. Julian the country becomes hilly, and continues so, as far to the northward as latitude 44°, the rock being porphyritic. The clay formation to the southward has been likened to the appearance of the coast of Kent, and, at a short distance, it bears, certainly, a very great resemblance to it; but the cliffs, instead of being of chalk, are composed of a soft marly clay, without any gravel or impressions of organic remains, excepting at Port St. Julian, where fossil shells, both bivalves and univalves, are found imbedded in clay cliffs; and, on the surface, are lying, strewed about, large oyster shells.

In the clay formation there are three rivers; the Gallegos in latitude 51° 38′; Port Santa Cruz in latitude 50° 7′ and in 49° 12′ is Port San Julian. The first does not extend further into the interior than forty miles from the coast, and to about the same distance Port Santa Cruz penetrates; but Port San Julian is of much smaller size, and Coy Inlet, in latitude 50° 58′, can only be entered by boats. The Gallegos, at high water, may be easily entered, but, at low water, the banks are dry to a great extent; a channel, however, is left on its south side of sufficient depth for a small vessel; the tide rises here forty-six feet, and the stream is very strong. At Santa Cruz and Port San Julian the tides are neither so strong. nor do they rise and fall so much as at the Gallegos.

Port Desire, about thirty miles to the southward of Cape Blanco, the mouth being in 47° 45′ south latitude, has a narrow entrance with strong tides; but affords in the offing very good anchorage as well as shelter from the prevailing winds, which are off shore or westerly. The river extends up the country nearly in a due-west direction for eighteen miles, but the land is dry and parched, and very unsuitable for the establishment which the Spanish government formed there not many years since, and of which evident traces remain to this day.

St. George's Gulf, called, in the old charts, 'Bahia sin Fondo,' or Deep-Sea Gulf, was formerly considered to be a deep sinuosity of the coast into which a river emptied its waters after winding through a large tract of country; for, until the Descubierta and Atrevidas voyage. of discovery, very vague accounts had been given of this or indeed of any other part of the coast. The Gulf, upon