1S34.] FORESTS. 235 



wood ; at other times, when attempting to lean against a firm 

 tree, one was startled by finding a mass of decayed matter ready 

 to fall at the slightest touch. We at last found ourselves among 

 the stunted trees, and then soon reached the bare ridge, which 

 conducted us to the summit. Here was a view characteristic of 

 Tierra del Fuego ; irregular chains of hills, mottled with patches 

 of snow, deep yellowish-green valleys, and arms of the sea inter- 

 secting the land in many directions. The strong wind was 

 piercingly cold, and the atmosphere rather hazy, so that we did 

 not stay long on the top of the mountain. Our descent was not 

 quite so laborious as our ascent ; for the weight of the body 

 forced a passage, and all the slips and falls were in the right 

 direction. 



I have already mentioned the sombre and dull character of the 

 evergreen forests,* in which two or three species of trees grow, 

 to the exclusion of all others. Above the forest land, there are 

 many dwarf alpine plants, which all spring from the mass of 

 peat, and help to compose it : these plants are very remarkable 

 from their close alliance with the species growing on the moun- 

 tains of Europe, though so many thousand miles distant. The 

 central part of Tierra del Fuego, where the clay -slate formation 

 occurs, is most favourable to the growth of trees ; on the outer 

 coast the poorer granitic soil, and a situation more exposed to 

 the violent winds, do not allow of their attaining any great size. 

 Near Port Famine I have seen more large trees than anywhere 

 else : I measured a Winter's Bark which was four feet six inches 

 in girth, and several of the beech were as much as thirteen feet. 

 Captain King also mentions a beech which was seven feet in 

 diameter seventeen feet above the roots. 



There is one vegetable production deserving notice from its 

 importance as an article of food to the Fuegians. It is a globu- 



* Captain Fitz Roy informs me that in April (our October), the leaves of 

 those trees which grow near the base of the mountains, change colour, but 

 not those on the more elevated parts. I remember having read some obser- 

 vations, showing that in England the leaves fall earlier in a warm and fine 

 autumn, than in a late and cold one. The change in the colour being here 

 retarded in the more elevated, and therefore colder situations, must be 

 owing to the same general law of vegetation. The trees of Tierra del 

 Fuego during no part of the year entirely shed their leaves. 



