第62章 ON THE FORMATIONS OF THE PAMPAS(11)

Moreover, in a precipitous part of the ravine of Las Bocas, a red sandstone is distinctly seen to overlie a thick bed of pale mud, also quite like the Pampean formation, abounding with concretions of true tosca-rock.This sandstone extends over many miles of country: it is as red as the brightest volcanic scoriae; it sometimes passes into a coarse red conglomerate composed of the underlying primary rocks; and often passes into a soft white sandstone with red streaks.At the Calera de los Huerfanos, only a quarter of a mile south of where I first met with the red sandstone, the crystalline white limestone is quarried: as this bed is the uppermost, and as it often passes into calcareous sandstone, interstratified with pure sand; and as the red sandstone likewise passes into soft white sandstone, and is also the uppermost bed, I believe that these two beds, though so different, are equivalents.A few leagues southward of these two places, on each side of the low primary range of S.Juan, there are some flat-topped, cliff-bounded, separate little hills, very similar to those fringing the primary ranges in the great plain south of Buenos Ayres: they are composed--1st, of calcareous tuff with many particles of quartz, sometimes passing into a coarse conglomerate; 2nd, of a stone undistinguishable on the closest inspection from the compacter varieties of tosca-rock; and 3rd, of semi-crystalline limestone, including nodules of agate: these three varieties pass insensibly into each other, and as they form the uppermost stratum in this district, I believe that they, also, are the equivalents of the pure crystalline limestone, and of the red and white sandstones and conglomerates.

Between these points and Mercedes on the Rio Negro, there are scarcely any good sections, the road passing over limestone, tosca-rock, calcareous and bright red sandstones, and near the source of the San Salvador over a wide extent of jaspery rocks, with much milky agate, like that in the limestone near San Juan.In the estancia of Berquelo, the separate, flat-topped, cliff-bounded hills are rather higher than in the other parts of the country; they range in a N.E.and S.W.direction; their uppermost beds consist of the same bright red sandstone, passing sometimes into a conglomerate, and in the lower part into soft white sandstone, and even into loose sand: beneath this sandstone, I saw in two places layers of calcareous and marly rocks, and in one place red Pampean-like earth; at the base of these sections, there was a hard, stratified, white sandstone, with chalcedonic layers.Near Mercedes, beds of the same nature and apparently of the same age, are associated with compact, white, crystalline limestone, including much botryoidal agate, and singular masses, like porcelain, but really composed of a calcareo-siliceous paste.In sinking wells in this district the chalcedonic strata seem to be the lowest.Beds, such as there described, occur over the whole of this neighbourhood; but twenty miles further up the R.Negro, in the cliffs of Perika, which are about fifty feet in height, the upper bed is a prettily variegated chalcedony, mingled with a pure white tallowy limestone; beneath this there is a conglomerate of quartz and granite; beneath this many sandstones, some highly calcareous; and the whole lower two-thirds of the cliff consists of earthy calcareous beds of various degrees of purity, with one layer of reddish Pampean-like mud.

When examining the agates, the chalcedonic and jaspery rocks, some of the limestones, and even the bright red sandstones, I was forcibly struck with their resemblance to deposits formed in the neighbourhood of volcanic action.I now find that M.Isabelle, in his "Voyage a Buenos Ayres," has described closely similar beds on Itaquy and Ibicuy (which enter the Uruguay some way north of the R.Negro) and these beds include fragments of red decomposed true scoriae hardened by zeolite, and of black retinite: we have then here good evidence of volcanic action during our tertiary period.

Still further north, near S.Anna, where the Parana makes a remarkable bend, M.Bonpland found some singular amygdaloidal rocks, which perhaps may belong to this same epoch.(M.d'Orbigny "Voyage" Part.Geolog.page 29) Imay remark that, judging from the size and well-rounded condition of the blocks of rock in the above-described conglomerates, masses of primary formation probably existed at this tertiary period above water: there is, also, according to M.Isabelle, much conglomerate further north, at Salto.

>From whatever source and through whatever means the great Pampean formation originated, we here have, I must repeat, unequivocal evidence of a similar action at a period before that of the deposition of the marine tertiary strata with extinct shells, at Santa Fe and P.Gorda.During also the deposition of these strata, we have in the intercalated layers of red Pampean-like mud and tosca-rock, and in the passage near S.Juan of the semi-crystalline limestones with agate into tosca undistinguishable from that of the Pampas, evidence of the same action, though continued only at intervals and in a feeble manner.We have further seen that in this district, at a period not only subsequent to the deposition of the tertiary strata, but to their upheavement and most extensive denudation, true Pampean mud with its usual characters and including mammiferous remains, was deposited round and between the hills or islets formed of these tertiary strata, and over the whole eastern and low primary districts of Banda Oriental.

EARTHY MASS, WITH EXTINCT MAMMIFEROUS REMAINS, OVER THE PORPHYRITIC GRAVELAT S.JULIAN, LATITUDE 49 DEGREES 14' S., IN PATAGONIA.

(FIGURE 16.SECTION OF THE LOWEST PLAIN AT PORT S.JULIAN.

(Section through beds from top to bottom: A, B, C, D, E, F.)AA.Superficial bed of reddish earth, with the remains of the Macrauchenia, and with recent sea-shells on the surface.