xxxii THE COAST OF ECUADOR 



493 



He unfolded at my feet, ready for the man who can read the signs 

 aright. 



That the mere presence of a cold current on a coast with the 

 winds blowing off the land (as in the case of the Labrador current, 

 which extends down the Atlantic coast of North America to Cape 

 Hatteras and beyond) produces no sterilising effect on the vegeta- 

 tion of the sea-border of a continent is well brought out in the 

 beautifully executed maps in Prof. Russell's recent work on North 

 America. The essential condition for producing sterility on the 

 sea-border of a continent is not only that the waters of a cold 

 current should wash its coasts, but that the regular winds should 

 blow landward across its cool surface. These are what we find on 

 the west coast of South America. 



Not with the hope of adding anything new to our knowledge of 

 the climatology of this region, but with the purpose of becoming 

 personally acquainted with the problem involved, I paid consider- 

 able attention to this subject during the three months passed 

 on the west coast of South America between Port Valdivia and 

 Guayaquil. It was not until I had dropped my thermometer into 

 the cool water of the Humboldt current and had watched the 

 formation of the fogs on the sterile coast of Peru that the real 

 nature of the problem presented itself. From the pages of a work 

 like Tschudi's Travels in Pent one acquires an excellent idea of the 

 extraordinary climatic conditions of this region, and the same may 

 be said of the narratives of Darwin and other travellers ; but it is 

 necessary to be brought into personal contact with these conditions 

 before one can appreciate their significance. 



As is well known, says Baron von Eggers, the Humboldt 

 current explains the anomalous climate of the coast of Peru, and 

 one may add of North Chile and Ecuador. The current, which 

 represents the extension northwards of the west wind-drift of the 

 Roaring Forties (see Dickson in Encycl. Brit., xxxi. 404 ; and 

 Admiralty Current Charts of the Pacific), begins on the coast 

 between the 33rd and 40th parallels of south latitude, according to 

 the season. North of Valdivia, as we approach Valparaiso, in 

 lat. 33 S., the effect of its presence is at once seen in the increasing 

 dryness of the climate and in the alteration in the character of the 

 vegetation. It has, however, been shown that the current needs 

 the co-operation of the prevailing southerly and westerly winds as 

 they blow landward over its cool waters. On the coast of Peru 

 these moist winds often generate fog and mist as they cross the 

 current. They reach the coast as drying winds, having a tempera- 



