To complete our discomforts we were obliged to cross the head of a creek of the sea, in which the water was as high as our horses' backs; and the little waves, owing to the violence of the wind, broke over us, and made us very wet and cold.

Even the iron-framed Gauchos professed themselves glad when they reached the settlement, after our little excursion.
The geological structure of these islands is in most respects simple.

The lower country consists of clay-slate and sandstone, containing fossils, very closely related to, but not identical with, those found in the Silurian formations of Europe; the hills are formed of white granular quartz rock.

The strata of the latter are frequently arched with perfect symmetry, and the appearance of some of the masses is in consequence most singular.

Pernety has devoted several pages to the description of a Hill of Ruins, the successive strata of which he has justly compared to the seats of an amphitheatre.