M. GEORGES CLARAZ. 357 



i With slight variation, this comparatively cool current 

 must have extended over a large area on both sides 

 of the equator, as the temperature of the water re- 

 mained nearly the same for about forty-eight hours. 



Throughout the voyage from Brazil to Europe, I 

 was fortunate in enjoying the society of a man of 

 remarkable intelligence, who has been a diligent and 

 accurate observer of nature in a region still imperfectly 

 known. M. Georges Claraz, by birth a Swiss, belong- 

 ing to a family of small proprietors in the Canton of 

 Fribourg, had gone out as a young man to improve 

 his fortune in South America. He had received a 

 fair scientific education, having followed the lectures 

 of the eminent men who have adorned the Polytechnic 

 School at Zurich ; but, what is much more rare, he 

 appeared to have retained everything that he had 

 ever learned, and to have had a clear perception of 

 the scientific value of the observations that a stranger 

 may make in a little-known region. After passing 

 some time in the state of Entrerios, he had settled 

 at Bahia Blanca, close to the northern border of 

 Patagonia. He had established friendly relations 

 with the Indians, and made frequent excursions in 

 the interior of Patagonia and southward as far as, 

 and even beyond, the river Chubat. 



During the entire time, although engaged in the 

 work of a settler, M. Claraz seems to have made care- 

 ful notes of his observations — on the native Indians 

 and their customs ; on the indigenous and the domestic 

 animals ; on the plants and their uses ; on the mineral 

 structure of the country, not omitting to take specimens 

 of the mud brought down by the different rivers ; and 



