34 MALDONADO. [CHA. isi. 



heard of a wood of palms ; and one of these trees, of considerable size, 

 I saw near the Pan de Azucar, in lat. 35. These, and the trees planted 

 by the Spaniards, offer the only exceptions to the general scarcity of 

 wood. Among the introduced kinds may be enumerated poplars, 

 olives, peach, and other fruit trees ; the peaches succeed so well, that 

 they afford the main supply of firewood to the city of Buenos Ayres. 

 Extremely level countries, such as the Pampas, seldom appear favour- 

 able to the growth of trees. This may possibly be attributed either to 

 the force of the winds, or the kind of drainage. In the nature of the 

 land, however, around Maldonado, no such reason is apparent; the 

 rocky mountains afford protected situations, enjoying various kinds of 

 soil ; streamlets of water are common at the bottoms of nearly every 

 valley; and the clayey nature of the earth seems adapted to retain 

 moisture. It has been inferred with much probability, that the presence 

 of woodland is generally determined* by the annual amount of 

 moisture ; yet in this province abundant and heavy rain falls during the 

 winter ; and the summer, though dry, is not so in any excessive degree.f 

 We see nearly the whole of Australia covered by lofty trees, yet that 

 country possesses a far more arid climate. Hence we must look to 

 some other and unknown cause. 



Confining our view to South America, we should certainly be tempted 

 to believe that trees flourished only under a very humid climate ; for 

 the limit of the forest-land follows, in a most remarkable manner, that 

 of the damp winds. In the southern part of the continent, where the 

 western gales, charged with moisture from the Pacific, prevail, every island 

 on the broken west coast, from lat. 38 to the extreme point of Tierra 

 del Fuego, is densely covered by impenetrable forests. On the eastern 

 side of the Cordillera, over the same extent of latitude, where a blue 

 sky and a fine climate prove that the atmosphere has been deprived of 

 its moisture by passing over the mountains, the arid plains of Patagonia 

 support a most scanty vegetation. In the more northern parts of the 

 continent, within the limits of the constant south-eastern trade wind, 

 the eastern side is ornamented by magnificent forests; whilst the 

 western coast, from lat. 4 S. to lat. 32 S., may be described as a 

 desert: on this western coast, northward of lat. 4 S., where the trade- 

 wind loses its regularity, and heavy torrents of rain fall periodically, 

 the shores of the Pacific, so utterly desert in Peru, assume near Cape 

 Blanco the character of luxuriance so celebrated at Guyaquil and 

 Panama. Hence in the southern and northern parts of the continent, 

 the forest and desert lands occupy reversed positions with respect to 

 the Cordillera, and these positions are apparently determined by the 

 direction of the prevalent winds. In the middle of the continent there 

 is a broad intermediate band, including central Chile and the provinces 

 of La Plata, where the rain-bringing winds have not to pass over lofty 

 mountains, and where the land is neither a desert nor covered by 

 forests. But even the rule, if confined to South America, of trees 



* Maclaren, article America, Encyclop. Britann. 



f AzarA says, " Je crois que la quantity annuelle des pluies est, dans toutei 

 ces contrecs, plus considerable qu'ea Espagne," VoL i, p. 36. 



