1832.] CLIMATE AND VEGETATION. \~> 



continent, whore the western gales, charged witli 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 tho 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 con- 

 tinent, 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 D S., may be described as a 

 desert : on this western coast, northward of lat. 4 S., where tho 

 trade-wind loses its regularity, and heavy torrents of rain fall 

 periodically, tho 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 flourishing 

 only in a climate rendered humid by rain-bearing winds, has a 

 strongly marked exception in the case of the Falkland Islands. 

 These islands, situated in the same latitude with Tierra del Fuego 

 and only between two and three hundred miles distant -from it, 

 having a nearly similar climate, with a geological formation almost 

 identical, with favourable situations and the same kind of peaty 

 soil, yet can boast of few plants deserving even the title of bushes; 

 whilst in Tierra del Fuego it is impossible to find an acre of land 

 not covered by the densest forest. In this case, both the direction 

 of the heavy gales of wind and of the currents of the sea are favour- 

 able to the transport of seeds from Tierra del Fuego, as is shown 

 by the canoes and trunks of trees drifted from that country, and 

 frequently thrown on the shores of the Western Falkland. Hence 

 perhaps it is, that there are many plants in common to the two 

 countries; but with respect to the trees of Tierra del Fuego, even 

 attempts made to transplant them have failed. 



