286 PRODUCTION OF PEAT. [chap. xiii. 



Astella is assisted by a few other plants — here and there 

 a small creeping Myrtus {M. num7nularia)^ with a woody 

 stem like our cranberry and with a sweet berry — an 

 Empetrum {E. rubruin)^ like our heath — a rush {Juncics 

 grandiJlorus\ are nearly the only ones that grow on the 

 swampy surface. These plants, though possessing a very 

 close general resemblance to the English species of the 

 same genera, are different. In the more level parts of the 

 country, the surface of the peat is broken up into little pools 

 of water, which stand at different heights, and appear as 

 if artificially excavated. Small streams of water, flowing 

 underground, complete the disorganisation of the vegetable 

 matter, and consolidate the whole. 



The climate of the southern part of America appears 

 particularly favourable to the production of peat. In the 

 Falkland Islands almost every kind of plant, even the 

 coarse grass which covers the whole surface of the land, 

 becomes converted into this substance : scarcely any situa- 

 tion checks its growth ; some of the beds are as much as 

 twelve feet thick, and the lower part becomes so solid when 

 dry, that it will hardly burn. Although every plant lends 

 its aid, yet in most parts the Astelia is the most efficient. 

 It is rather a singular circumstance, as being so very 

 different from what occurs in Europe, that I nowhere saw 

 moss forming by its decay any portion of the peat in South 

 America. With respect to the northern limit, at which the 

 climate allows of that peculiar kind of slow decomposition 

 which is necessary for its production, I believe that in Chiloe 

 (lat. 41° to 42°), although there is much swampy ground, no 

 well characterised peat occurs ; but in the Chonos Islands, 

 three degrees farther southward, we have seen that it is 

 abundant. On the eastern coast in La Plata (lat. 35°) I 

 was told by a Spanish resident, who had visited Ireland, 

 that he had often sought for this substance, but had never 

 been able to find any. He showed me, as the nearest 

 approach to it which he had discovered, a black peaty soil, 

 so penetrated with roots as to allow of an extremely slow 

 and imperfect combustion. 



The zoology of these broken islets of the Chonos 

 Archipelago is, as might have been expected, very poor. 

 Of quadrupeds two aquatic kinds are common. The 

 Myopotamus Coypus (like a beaver, but with a round tail) 

 is well known from its fine fur, which is an object of trade 



