60 MALDONADO. 



the forest-land follows, in a most remarkable man- 

 ner, that of tlie clamp 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 lati- 

 tude, where a blue sky and a fine climate prove 

 that the atmosphere has been deprived of its moist- 

 ure 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 toiTents of rain fall 

 periodically, the shores of the Pacific, so utterly 

 desert in Peru, assume near Cape Blanco the char- 

 acter 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 Cor- 

 dillera, and these positions are apparently deter- 

 mined by the direction of the prevalent winds. In 

 the middle of the continent there is a broad inter- 

 mediate band, including central Chile and the prov- 

 inces 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 flourishing only in a climate rendered hu- 

 mid by rain-bearing winds, has a strongly marked 

 exception in the case of the Falkland Islands. 

 These islands, situated in the same latitude with 



