3o6 CHONOS ARCHIPELAGO chap. 



— an Empetrum (E. rubrum), like our heath,— a rush (Juncus 

 grandiflorus), are nearly the only ones that grow on the swampy 

 surface. These plants, though possessing a very close general 

 resemblance to the English species of the same genera, are 

 different. In the more level parts of the country, the surface 

 of the peat is broken up into little pools of water, which stand 

 at different heights, and appear as if artificially excavated. 

 Small streams of water, flowing underground, complete the 

 disorganisation of the vegetable matter, and consolidate the 

 whole. 



The climate of the southern part of America appears 

 particularly favourable to the production of peat. In the 

 Falkland Islands almost every kind of plant, even the coarse 

 grass which covers the whole surface of the land, becomes 

 converted into this substance: scarcely any situation checks its 

 growth ; some of the beds are as much as twelve feet thick, 

 and the lower part becomes so solid when dry, that it will 

 hardly burn. Although every plant lends its aid, yet in most 

 parts the Astelia is the most efficient. It is rather a singular 

 circumstance, as being so very different from what occurs in 

 Europe, that I nowhere saw moss forming by its decay any 

 portion of the peat in South America. With respect to the 

 northern limit at which the climate allows of that peculiar kind 

 of slow decomposition which is necessary for its production, I 

 believe that in Chiloe (lat. 41° to 42°), although there is much 

 swampy ground, no well-characterised peat occurs : but in the 

 Chonos Islands, three degrees farther southward, we have seen 

 that it is abundant. On the eastern coast in La Plata (lat. 35°) 

 I was told by a Spanish resident, who had visited Ireland, that 

 he had often sought for this substance, but had never been able 

 to find any. He showed me, as the nearest approach to it 

 which he had discovered, a black peaty soil, so penetrated 

 with roots as to allow of an extremely slow and imperfect 

 combustion. 



The zoology of these broken islets of the Chonos Archipelago 

 is, as might have been expected, very poor. Of quadrupeds two 

 aquatic kinds are common. The Myopotamus Coypus (like a 

 beaver, but with a round tail) is well known from its fine fur, 

 which is an object of trade throughout the tributaries of La 



