As the land, moreover, on which the trees grew, is formed of subaqueous deposits, of nearly if not quite equal thickness with the superincumbent strata, and as these deposits are regularly stratified and fine-grained, not like the matter thrown up on a sea-beach, a previous upward movement, aided no doubt by the great accumulation of lavas and sediment, is also indicated. (At first I imagined, that the strata with the trees might have been accumulated in a lake: but this seems highly improbable; for, first, a very deep lake was necessary to receive the matter below the trees, then it must have been drained for their growth, and afterwards re-formed and made profoundly deep, so as to receive a subsequent accumulation of matter SEVERAL THOUSAND feet in thickness. And all this must have taken place necessarily before the formation of the Uspallata range, and therefore on the margin of the wide level expanse of the Pampas! Hence I conclude, that it is infinitely more probable that the strata were accumulated under the sea: the vast amount of denudation, moreover, which this range has suffered, as shown by the wide valleys, by the exposure of the very trees and by other appearances, could have been effected, I conceive, only by the long-continued action of the sea; and this shows that the range was either upheaved from under the sea, or subsequently let down into it. From the natural manner in which the stumps (fifty-two in number) are GROUPED IN A CLUMP, and from their all standing vertically to the strata, it is superfluous to speculate on the chance of the trees having been drifted from adjoining land, and deposited upright: I may, however, mention that the late Dr. Malcolmson assured me, that he once met in the Indian Ocean, fifty miles from land, several cocoa-nut trees floating upright, owing to their roots being loaded with earth.)
In nearly the middle of the range, there are some hills [Q], before alluded to, formed of a kind of granite externally resembling andesite, and consisting of a white, imperfectly granular, feldspathic basis, including some perfect crystals apparently of albite (but I was unable to measure them), much black mica, epidote in veins, and very little or no quartz. Numerous small veins branch from this rock into the surrounding strata; and it is a singular fact that these veins, though composed of the same kind of feldspar and small scales of mica as in the solid rock, abound with innumerable minute ROUNDED grains of quartz: in the veins or dikes also, branching from the great granitic axis in the peninsula of Tres Montes, I observed that quartz was more abundant in them than in the main rock: I have heard of other analogous cases: can we account for this fact, by the long-continued vicinity of quartz when cooling, and by its having been thus more easily sucked into fissures than the other constituent minerals of granite? (See a paper by M. Elie de Beaumont, "Soc. Philomath." May 1839 "L'Institut." 1839 page 161.) The strata encasing the flanks of these granitic or andesite masses, and forming a thick cap on one of their summits, appear originally to have been of the same tufaceous nature with the beds already described, but they are now changed into porcellanic, jaspery, and crystalline rocks, and into others of a white colour with a harsh texture, and having a siliceous aspect, though really of a feldspathic nature and fusible. Both the granitic intrusive masses and the encasing strata are penetrated by innumerable metallic veins, mostly ferruginous and auriferous, but some containing copper-pyrites and a few silver: near the veins, the rocks are blackened as if blasted by gunpowder. The strata are only slightly dislocated close round these hills, and hence, perhaps, it may be inferred that the granitic masses form only the projecting points of a broad continuous axis-dome, which has given to the upper parts of this range its anticlinal structure.
CONCLUDING REMARKS ON THE USPALLATA RANGE.
I will not attempt to estimate the total thickness of the pile of strata forming this range, but it must amount to many thousand feet.