第19章 ON THE ELEVATION OF THE EASTERN COAST OF SOUTH AME

moreover, I have repeatedly found in the most exposed situations that the pebbles which lie at the bottom are encrusted with full-grown living corallines, furnished with the most delicate, yet unbroken spines: for instance, in ten fathoms water off the mouth of the Santa Cruz, many pebbles, under half an inch in diameter, were thus coated with Flustracean zoophytes.(A pebble, one and a half inch square and half an inch thick, was given me, dredged up from twenty-seven fathoms depth off the western end of the Falkland Islands, where the sea is remarkably stormy, and subject to violent tides.This pebble was encrusted on all sides by a delicate living coralline.I have seen many pebbles from depths between forty and seventy fathoms thus encrusted; one from the latter depth off Cape Horn.) Hence we must conclude that these pebbles are not often violently disturbed: it should, however, be borne in mind that the growth of corallines is rapid.The view, propounded by Professor Playfair, will, Ibelieve, explain this apparent difficulty,--namely, that from the undulations of the sea TENDING to lift up and down pebbles or other loose bodies at the bottom, such are liable, when thus quite or partially raised, to be moved even by a very small force, a little onwards.We can thus understand how oceanic or tidal currents of no great strength, or that recoil movement of the bottom-water near the land, called by sailors the "undertow" (which I presume must extend out seaward as far as the BREAKINGwaves impel the surface-water towards the beach), may gain the power during storms of sifting and distributing pebbles even of considerable size, and yet without so violently disturbing them as to injure the encrusting corallines.(I may take this opportunity of remarking on a singular, but very common character in the form of the bottom, in the creeks which deeply penetrate the western shores of Tierra del Fuego; namely, that they are almost invariably much shallower close to the open sea at their mouths than inland.Thus, Cook, in entering Christmas Sound, first had soundings in thirty-seven fathoms, then in fifty, then in sixty, and a little farther in no bottom with 170 fathoms.The sealers are so familiar with this fact, that they always look out for anchorage near the entrances of the creeks.

See, also, on this subject, the "Voyages of the 'Adventure' and 'Beagle'"volume 1 page 375 and "Appendix" page 313.This Shoalness of the sea-channels near their entrances probably results from the quantity of sediment formed by the wear and tear of the outer rocks exposed to the full force of the open sea.I have no doubt that many lakes, for instance in Scotland, which are very deep within, and are separated from the sea apparently only by a tract of detritus, were originally sea-channels with banks of this nature near their mouths, which have since been upheaved.)The sea acts in another and distinct manner in the distribution of pebbles, namely by the waves on the beach.Mr.Palmer, in his excellent memoir on this subject, has shown that vast masses of shingle travel with surprising quickness along lines of coast, according to the direction with which the waves break on the beach and that this is determined by the prevailing direction of the winds.("Philosophical Transactions" 1834 page 576.) This agency must be powerful in mingling together and disseminating pebbles derived from different sources: we may, perhaps, thus understand the wide distribution of the gallstone-yellow porphyry; and likewise, perhaps, the great difference in the nature of the pebbles at the mouth of the Santa Cruz from those in the same latitude at the head of the valley.