Who can avoid wondering at the force which has upheaved these mountains, and even more so at the countless ages which it must have required to have broken through, removed, and levelled whole masses of them?
It is well in this case to call to mind the vast shingle and sedimentary beds of Patagonia, which, if heaped on the Cordillera, would increase its height by so many thousand feet.

When in that country, I wondered how any mountain-chain could have supplied such masses, and not have been utterly obliterated.

We must not now reverse the wonder, and doubt whether all-powerful time can grind down mountains--even the gigantic Cordillera--into gravel and mud.
The appearance of the Andes was different from that which I had expected.

The lower line of the snow was of course horizontal, and to this line the even summits of the range seemed quite parallel.
Only at long intervals a group of points or a single cone showed where a volcano had existed, or does now exist.

Hence the range resembled a great solid wall, surmounted here and there by a tower, and making a most perfect barrier to the country.
Almost every part of the hill had been drilled by attempts to open gold-mines: the rage for mining has left scarcely a spot in Chile unexamined.