160 SOUTH AMERICA 



receives a fair amount of rain throughout the year, with 

 a marked rainy period. The landscape is essentially 

 parklike grass- land, studded with groves of trees or 

 small woodlands. The forest islands show a distinct 

 mild-temperate type of medium-sized trees with - small 

 somewhat leathery leaves and dense crowns, and a thick 

 undergrowth, from which the tropical wealth of woody 

 lianas and the aerial gardens of broad-leaf epiphytes 

 are absent. On grounds of more recent formation, still 

 caked and hard, are developed thin woodlands of orchard- 

 like aspect, with a grass carpet, and a dotting of low, 

 thorny and bushy acacias, fine-leaved and shadeless. 



More rolling and slowly rising in a regular swell 

 towards the Brazilian uplands, Uruguay offers much the 

 same natural features : Entre Rios is partly agricultural, 

 while in Uruguay, the more rocky land, though not 

 unsuited, in many places, to agriculture, has been trans- 

 formed, on account of its natural pastures, into a vast 

 cattle-ranch. With the increasing immigration of Euro- 

 peans, however, the cultural resources are developing, 

 maize and wheat being the staple crops. 



Patagonia semi-desert. A truly dismal picture is 

 that of the Patagonian semi-desert which stretches, 

 south of the Rio Colorado, from the Atlantic to the Andes : 

 a rolling plain of shingle, gravel, and sand, bestrewn 

 with marshy hollows, cut up by ravines and canons, 

 broken occasionally by short and low ranges. The climate 

 is half desert, but winter colds and frosts and icy winds 

 are prominent features : rain falls only occasionally, and 

 then in downpours. The result is a treeless, open, 

 even scattered growth of bushes, mostly Compos itae, 

 plantago, verbena, &c. These shrubs, from three to nine 

 feet in height, are scrubby, thorny, and woody, with 

 tiny, grey, leathery leaves^ all viscous or hairy. Most 



