ssible that the mixture of large bodies of
fresh and salt water may disturb the electrical equilibrium? Even
during our occasional visits to this part of South America, we
heard of a ship, two churches, and a house having been struck. Both
the church and the house I saw shortly afterwards: the house
belonged to Mr. Hood, the consul-general at Monte Video. Some of
the effects were curious: the paper, for nearly a foot on each side
of the line where the bell-wires had run, was blackened. The metal
had been fused, and although the room was about fifteen feet high,
the globules, dropping on the chairs and furniture, had drilled in
them a chain of minute holes. A part of the wall was shattered as
if by gunpowder, and the fragments had been blown off with force
sufficient to dent the wall on the opposite side of the room. The
frame of a looking-glass was blackened, and the gilding must have
been volatilised, for a smelling-bottle, which stood on the
chimney-piece, was coated with bright metallic particles, which
adhered as firmly as if they had been enamelled.

(PLATE 17. HALT AT A PULPERIA ON THE PAMPAS.)

CHAPTER IV.

(PLATE 18. EL CARMEN, OR PATAGONES, RIO NEGRO.)

Rio Negro.
Estancias attacked by the Indians.
Salt Lakes.
Flamingoes.
R. Negro to R. Colorado.
Sacred Tree.
Patagonian Hare.
Indian Families.
General Rosas.
Proceed to Bahia Blanca.
Sand Dunes.
Negro Lieutenant.
Bahia Blanca.
Saline Incrustations.
Punta Alta.
Zorillo.

RIO NEGRO TO BAHIA BLANCA.

JULY 24, 1833.

The "Beagle" sailed from Maldonado, and on August the 3rd she
arrived off the mouth of the Rio Negro. This is the principal river
on the whole line of coast between the Strait of Magellan and the
Plata. It enters the sea about three hundred miles south of the
estuary of the Plata. About fifty years ago, under the old Spanish
government, a small colony was established here; and it is still
the most southern position (latitude 41 degrees) on this eastern
coast of America inhabited by civilised man.

The country near the mouth of the river is wretched in the extreme:
on the south side a long line of perpendicular cliffs commences,
which exposes a section of the geological nature of the country.
The strata are of sandstone, and one layer was remarkable from
being composed of a firmly-cemented conglomerate of pumice pebbles,
which must have travelled more than four hundred miles, from the
Andes. The surface is everywhere cov