Ch.VI. south AMERICA. GÍ 



rervthin stuff will not soon be wet through; but the 

 continuance ofthe mists during the whole winter with- 

 out being exhaled by the sun, renders the most arid 

 and barren parts fertile. Forthe samereason they turn 

 the disagreeable dust in the streets of Lima into a 

 mud, which is rather more offensive. 



The winds which prevail during the winter, are 

 nearly, though not exactly, south ; sometimes shifting 

 a little to the S. E. between which and the south 

 they always blow.* This we observed to have con- 

 stantly happened during the two winters we spent 

 in this country, one at Lima, and the other at Cal- 

 lao ; the former in the year 1742, and the latter 

 in 1743. The first was one ofthe most severe that 

 had been felt, and the cold general in all that part 

 of America to Cape Horn. In Chili, Baldivia^ and 

 Chiloe, the cold was proportionable to the latitudes; 

 and at Lima it occasioned constipations and fluxions, 

 which swept away such numbers that it seemed to 

 resemble a pestilence. And though disorders of this 

 kind arc very common in the winter season, they are 

 rarely attended with the danger which then accom- 

 panied them. 



The extraordinary singularity observed in the king- 

 dom of Peru, namely, that it never rains ; or to 

 speak more properly, that the clouds do not convert 

 themselves into formal showers, has induced many 

 naturalists to enquire into the cause: but in their 

 solutions of this difficulty they have varied, and in- 

 vented several hypotheses to account for so strange 

 an effect. Some attribute it to the constancy of the 

 south winds, concluding, that as they are incessant, 

 they propel the vapours rising from the sea, to the 

 same point; and thus by never resting in any part, 

 as no opposite v/inds blow during the whole year 



The wind here blows S. by E. to S. by W. but generally 

 It S. S, E. from June to December. A. A 



* 

 eboiU S. 



F 2 to 



