THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN. 479 



Campbell and I accordingly landed and ascended one of the 

 rugged gray syenite hills, about a thousand feet or more in 

 height. The geology of the Channels, I may here remark, 

 appears to be of a singularly uniform character, syenite 

 being the prevailing formation, and here and there dark 

 veins of greenstone occurring. Around this harbour the 

 summits of nearly all the mountains are flattened and tabular, 

 and almost entirely destitute of any vegetation higher than 

 lichens. In the course of our ascent I was much interested 

 by finding in the clefts of the rocks, at the side of a small 

 stream, a variety of the curious plant found at Port Grappler, 

 differing from the form first obtained in the much stouter 

 branches and more closely aggregated leaves. The first 

 specimens observed occurred at an elevation of about 600 

 feet ; and I again found the plant almost at the summit of 

 the mountain. All the specimens had passed out of bloom. 

 A curious cryptogamic plant, noticed for the first time, was 

 the Jungermannia splachnophylla, recorded by Dr. Hooker 

 from Cape Horn, the branches of which are so thick and crisp 

 as to break readily across. 



It rained hard all that night, and next morning there 

 was wind in addition. I occupied the afternoon in visiting 

 the environs of various parts of the beautiful harbour, 

 following the course of a stream for some distance, on the 

 banks of which I found a fine species of Carex. We had 

 been a good deal perplexed for some time past by observing 

 that three-fourths of the flowers of Desfontainea spinosa, 

 which is very abundant, as I have already observed, in the 

 western part of the Strait and Channels, and was at this 

 time in full bloom, were perforated by a rather large aperture 

 near the base of the corolla, and this day we discovered the 

 cause of the injury. A large orange humble-bee (Bomhus 



