I received several accounts of beds of shells, existing at considerable
heights in the inland parts of Chiloe; and to one of these, near Catiman, I
was guided by a countryman. Here, on the south side of the peninsula of
Lacuy, there was an immense bed of the Venus costellata and of an oyster,
lying on the summit-edge of a piece of tableland, 350 feet (by the
barometer) above the level of the sea. The shells were closely packed
together, embedded in and covered by a very black, damp, peaty mould, two
or three feet in thickness, out of which a forest of great trees was
growing. Considering the nature and dampness of this peaty soil, it is
surprising that the fine ridges on the outside of the Venus are perfectly
preserved, though all the shells have a blackened appearance. I did not
doubt that the black soil, which when dry, cakes hard, was entirely of
terrestrial origin, but on examining it under the microscope, I found many
very minute rounded fragments of shells, amongst which I could distinguish
bits of Serpulae and mussels. The Venus costellata, and the Ostrea (O.
edulis, according to Captain King) are now the commonest shells in the
adjoining bays. In a bed of shells, a few feet below the 350 feet bed, I
found a horn of the little Cervus humilis, which now inhabits Chiloe.

The eastern or inland side of Chiloe, with its many adjacent islets,
consists of tertiary and boulder deposits, worn into irregular plains
capped by gravel. Near Castro, and for ten miles southward, and on the
islet of Lemuy, I found the surface of the ground to a height of between
twenty and thirty feet above high-water mark, and in several places
apparently up to fifty feet, thickly coated by much comminuted shells,
chiefly of the Venus costellata and Mytilus Chiloensis; the species now
most abundant on this line of coast. As the inhabitants carry immense
numbers of these shells inland, the continuity of the bed at the same
height was often the only means of recognising its natural origin. Near