50 



racteristic features of Madeira so vividly, as to be, lite- 

 rally, as suggestive of that island as it doubtless is of 

 Tierra del Fuego. " Finding it nearly hopeless," says 

 Darwin, " to push my way through the wood, I followed 

 the coiorse of a mountain-torrent. At first, from the 

 waterfalls and number of dead trees, I could hardly 

 crawl along ; but the bed of the stream soon became a 

 little more open, from the floods having swept the sides. 

 I continued slowly to advance for an hour along the 

 broken and rocky banks, and was amply repaid by the 

 grandeur of the scene. The gloomy depth of the ravine 

 well accorded with the universal signs of violence. On 

 every side were lying irregular masses of rock and torn- 

 up trees; other trees, though stUl erect, were decayed 

 to the heart and ready to fall. The entangled mass of 

 the thriving and the fallen reminded me of the forests 

 "within the tropics ; yet there was a difference, — for in 

 these still solitudes, Death, instead of Life, seemed the 

 predominant spirit*." 



As regards the paucity of species in Tierra del Fuego, 

 there are many instances on record of other countries, 

 and in various latitudes, in which the same anomaly 

 (though perhaps in a less degree) prevails. I have my- 

 self observed, in Madeira, large forest tracts, at a con- 

 shaping his course in that direction, in spite of the endeavours of his 

 crew (by menaces and supplications) to prevent him, he discovered, 

 in the year 1420, the island to which, from the trees that covered it, 

 he gave the name of Madeira." — A Sketch of Madeira, London, 

 1851, p. 16. 



* Journal of Researches, pp. 209, 210. 



