FEBRUARY. 37 



THE ARAUCAKIA IMBRICATA ON THE ANDES OF 

 SOUTH CHILL 



Agreeably to promise, I send you a translation of Dr. Poeppig's 

 account of his excursion to the native forests of this noble tree 

 from the village of Antuco, situated in lat. 37° S., at a considerable 

 elevation on the -western declivity of the chain of the Andes -wliich 

 separates soiithern Chili from the country of the Pehuenches and 

 other tribes of Indians of a wild, nomadic, and lawless character. 

 Your readers will find that it confirms the observations made upon 

 the soil and situations best suited to it in your article upon this 

 prince of the Conifers at p. 22. 



" The Araucaria, a tree which supplies the Indians of the Pata- 

 gonian Andes with a great part of their subsistence, does not grow 

 in the Ioav country, and observes a distinctly defined limit in its 

 extension northwards. Sickly specimens are, indeed, to be seen in 

 various parts of the province of Concepcion, which have been planted 

 by hand, but even there it is extremely difficult to rear; and out of 

 a number of seeds sown at Talcahuano only two vegetated, and these 

 soon died. Mountain air, a ruder climate than that of the lower 

 regions, and more especially a rocky soil, appear to be what it most 

 requires. Not a single one grows in the immediate neighbourhood 

 of Antuco ; and to gratify my anxious desire of seeing a forest of 

 these majestic trees, a laborious expedition was necessary. 



"Between Antuco and the fort of Tvun-Leuvu opens a short, 

 narrow, thickly- wooded valley, of rapid ascent, which might be re- 

 garded as a continuation of the ravine through which the Rucue 

 flows, were they not separated by a broad ridge. A brook called 

 Quillay-Leuvu (the Quillay stream) runs at the bottom, and gives 

 it its name. Accompanied by a countryman, who had acquired 

 some acquaintance with the mountains in better times, when the 

 Antucans Avere possessed of large herds of cattle, I set out, on a path 

 now totally disused, and knowoi but to few. It Avas impossible to 

 penetrate the dense vegetation of the valley on horseback, and we 

 therefore went on foot, taking with us only a woollen covering each 

 and some provisions. Similar obstructions every where present them- 

 selves to the stranger who, led by curiosity or scientific interest, aban- 

 dons the few roads which connect the scattered settlements of the 

 Andes. The American collector acquires not his treasures with the 

 same facility as in Europe ; and the possession of many insignificant 

 plaUts is only to be won by perils and exertions not required in our 

 part of the world. Around the little village or solitary hut where 

 the wanderer has taken up his temporary abode extends the un- 

 inhabited wilderness, intersected perhaps by paths traceable only 

 by an eye accustomed to such localities, or destitute of any thing to 

 guide him but his own conjectures. The natives, whose occupations 

 seldom lead them far from the immediate neighbourhood of their 

 own village, and whom curiosity never leads to explore the unfre- 

 quented recesses of the forests and mountains, are for the most part 



