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being greater, cultivation is confined to the vallies, where 

 there is water to irrigate the land. * 



The northern provinces present a very barren aspect. 

 From the river Chuapa to Coquimbo, there are few trees ; 

 though shrubs are still tolerably abundant, and many beautiful 

 plants with annual stems are common in the rainy season ; 

 but there is no cultivation whatever, except in the vallies 

 where the soil can be irrigated. The Carbon (your Cordia 

 decandrd) is almost the only tree that abounds; its wood 

 is exceedingly hard and heavy, and in the absence of coal, 

 well adapted for the purpose to which it is applied, the 

 smelting of copper ore. Near the river Chuapa, there is 

 another tree which affords fuel for the same purpose, called 

 Talguea ; but it is not the plant known by the same name 

 in the south of Chili, {Trevoa quinquenervia,) which is 

 described in your Botanical Miscellany, from Dr. Gillies' 

 specimens. Various species of Cacti, which are only seen 

 occasionally in the south, become exceedingly common in 

 these provinces, and scarcely any other plants are found in 

 the dreary country between Coquimbo and the valley of 

 Guasco, and from thence to Copiapo. In the interior, the 

 hills consist of immense masses of rock, frequently altogether 

 destitute of soil; but they are covered with, I may almost 

 say, forests of Cacti, for some of the columnar species, throw- 

 ing out a great number of branches, grow to the height of 

 thirty or forty feet, and are so abundant, that the withered 

 stems supply fuel for refining all the copper smelted in the 

 mining districts. 



Beyond Copiapo, the country, retaining the same moun- 

 tainous character, is a complete desert, which continues 

 along the whole coast of Peru, to the mouth of the Guaya- 

 quil river, interrupted only by the vallies, which are from 

 six to twenty or thirty leagues apart. Where the country 

 is low, it is occupied by large tracts of sand whereon a few 

 patches of Tillandsice are sometimes met with, the last genus 

 of plants, perhaps, that a Botanist would expect to find where 

 neither a tree nor shrub is to be seen. These, and a few 

 stunted Cacti compose the Flora of the hills on the coast 



