The mud is black, and has a fetid odour.

I could not at first imagine the cause of this, but I afterwards perceived that the froth which the wind drifted on shore was coloured green, as if by confervae; I attempted to carry home some of this green matter, but from an accident failed.

Parts of the lake seen from a short distance appeared of a reddish colour, and this perhaps was owing to some infusorial animalcula.

The mud in many places was thrown up by numbers of some kind of worm, or annelidous animal.

How surprising it is that any creatures should be able to exist in brine, and that they should be crawling among crystals of sulphate of soda and lime! And what becomes of these worms when, during the long summer, the surface is hardened into a solid layer of salt?
Flamingoes in considerable numbers inhabit this lake, and breed here, throughout Patagonia, in Northern Chile, and at the Galapagos Islands, I met with these birds wherever there were lakes of brine.
I saw them here wading about in search of food--probably for the worms which burrow in the mud; and these latter probably feed on infusoria or confervae.