490 A NATURALIST IN THE PACIFIC chap. 



between the humid mangrove-fronted coast of the Guayas 

 estuary and the similarly humid and mangrove-fronted coasts 

 of Northern Ecuador and Colombia. The mangrove seems 

 to be almost absent from this stretch of dry coast. Mr. F. P. 

 Walker, of the Santa Elena Cable Station, tells me that some 

 time ago a little mangrove-growth existed near the Point, 

 but that it has disappeared ; and Baron von Eggers implies the 

 absence of mangroves from the whole coast. The first-named 

 speaks of the dry character of the coast district from Santa Elena 

 Point to within half a degree of the equator ; and the last-named, 

 in his description of the coast, mentions cacti and thorny plants as 

 typical of the vegetation. Since this region represents a typical 

 locality where the direct influence of the Humboldt current on the 

 climate of almost the whole west coast of South America can be 

 put to the proof, I will refer to its peculiar climatic conditions 

 below in my discussion of the general question, and will here 

 content myself with saying that on this dry portion of the coast of 

 Ecuador we have reproduced, but in a less pronounced degree, the 

 climatic conditions of the coast of Peru. 



The Humboldt or Peruvian Current and the Climate of the West 

 Coast of South America. — The question we will now briefly consider 

 is one that is concerned with the determining causes of the singular 

 distribution of coast-plants on the west coast of South America. 

 The reader will have already seen that the matter is an affair of 

 climate ; but it is an affair of climate in which (although it 

 affects forty or more degrees of latitude), latitude, in a general 

 sense, scarcely counts. All the naturalists, from Humboldt 

 onward, who have sojourned in this region of the globe 

 have displayed a deep interest in this subject ; and I suppose 

 there can be no region of the globe where there are so many 

 climatic anomalies as interesting to the meteorologist. Here, for 

 instance, might be obtained materials for solving the irritating 

 mystery of a London fog ; and if the suggestion of Baron von 

 Eggers, before alluded to, is carried out, and a station is established 

 by the Meteorological Societies of Europe and America at some 

 suitable locality like Santa Elena on the coast of Ecuador, we 

 might obtain, among other results, another line of investigating the 

 causes of the fogs of our metropolis, a subject about which Captain 

 Carpenter has recently made an important preliminary inquiry. 



I will assume that my readers are already acquainted with the 

 nature of the problem to be discussed relating to the climate of the 

 west coast of South America, and that they are familiar with the 



