Patagonia Bookshelf

We determined to remain here at all risks till the Patagonians arrive. Captain Gardiner suggests that we should raise a mound, ten feet broad at the base and seven feet high all round the most exposed sides of the station. As the soil immediately below the surface is very compact and hard clay, I feel sure it is utterly out of our power to accomplish such an undertaking before the winter sets in, for as we proceeded we should form a ditch from which every spadeful of a great part of the mound would have to be raised ten or twelve feet high. I therefore proposed that two lines of compact sods should be raised five or six feet above the surface of the ground and six feet distant from each other at the base and the interval between them be filled up with clay, taken from the ground outside the line of sods most remote from the houses; thus a ditch and wall would be formed, the top of the wall being at least eight feet above the bottom of the ditch, the wall being in such a position with regard to the houses, and making such an angle with the surface of the ground as would have the effect of giving the strong winds an upward tendency and thus shield the houses from their violence.