142 STEPPES AND DESERTS. 



in 38 and 40 of south latitude, is so picturesquely 

 described by Charles Darwin, suddenly disappears south 

 of Cape Horn, on the rocks of the Southern Orkney and 

 Shetland Islands, and of the Sandwich Archipelago. These 

 Islands, but scantily covered with grass, moss, and lichens, 

 ' ' Terres de Desolation/' as the Trench navigators call them, 

 are still far north of the Antarctic Circle ; whereas in the 

 Northern Hemisphere in 70 of latitude, at the extremity of 

 Scandinavia, fir-trees attain a height of between 60 and 70 

 English feet. (Compare Darwin iii the " Journal of Re- 

 searches/' 1845, p. 244, with King in vol. i. of the Narra- 

 tive of the Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle, p. 577.) 

 If we compare Tierra del Fuego, and particularly Port 

 Famine in the Straits of Magellan in lat. 53 38', with 

 Berlin, which is one degree nearer the equator, we find for 



-0.5 30.8 



Berlin 6 8, K, 47. 2, Fahr. ; and for 



13.9 63.2 



1.2 34.8 



Port Famine 4. 7, E., 42. 6, Fahr. 



8.0 50.0 



I subjoin in one view the few well-assured temperature 

 data which we at present possess, for the lands of the 

 temperate zone in the Southern Hemisphere, and which 

 may be compared with the temperatures of the Northern 

 Hemisphere, in most parts of which the distribution into 

 summer heat and winter cold is so different and so much 

 less equable. I employ the convenient method of notation 

 before used and explained in pages 129 131. 



