THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN. 265 



phylla. The flowers were of a delicate pinkisli-purple colour ; 

 and it is a fact worthy of note that, while all the specimens 

 of the plant observed by me in the Falkland Islands possessed 

 flowers of a snow-white tint, all those collected in various 

 parts of Patagonia had flowers more or less tinged with 

 various shades of purple. On the 21st, in the course of a 

 long walk to the south of the settlement, I found Hippuris 

 growing in abundance in pools of brackish water close to the 

 beach, and obtained some splendid flowering specimens of 

 Berberis ilicifolia in the woods. On the following morning I 

 landed with Captain Mayne and one or two of the officers, 

 with the intention of riding up to the coal-mine ; but the 

 governor assured us that the river was too much swollen 

 from recent rains to permit of the atterapt, and we accord- 

 ingly rode out instead over the plains as far as the woods 

 beyond the lagoon. On our way I again observed Hippuris, 

 and under the trees I obtained fine specimens of a white 

 Valerian, the V. lapathifolia, and of the elegant Cardamine 

 geraniifolia, and, at the edge of a stream, some fine examples 

 of a small fern, Asplenium Magellanicumy procured the previ- 

 ous year at Port Gallant, and which I afterwards found to be 

 common throughout the wooded country of the Strait and 

 Channels, in the island of Chiloe, and even in the neighbour- 

 hood of Valparaiso. 



On the 23d the water of the river had sunk sufficiently 

 to allow of a party of us visiting the mine, in company with 

 the governor of the settlement and a French naval officer, 

 M. Fleurier, at that time resident at Sandy Point, engaged 

 in meteorological and other scientific observations. We had 

 a very agreeable ride through the forest, but found that the 

 mining operations had apparently not made much progress 

 since the time of our last visit, and we noticed but little that 



