AUSTRAL-AMERICAN REGIONS. 



was more loose and drifting, the roots of plants seeming to penetrate 

 more deeply, and various species made their appearance, not met with 

 on the Upland plain ; but the general character of the vegetable growth 

 continued unchanged. 



The eye in botanizing was now relieved from looking upwards, and 

 readily scanned an acre at a time ; but the aspect of the vegetable 

 growth was strange ; there was difficulty in realizing that this was 

 part of America; and it was through reasoning and research, that 

 I at lensfth obtained evidence of the fiict. Characteristic American 

 Tribes of plants were after a while detected, as Cadacem, Grindelia, 

 Bnccliarls, and Oenotliera ; all however comparatively rare, so thinly 

 scattered as to be out of sight amid the general vegetable growth. 



Climate. The 27th and 28th were spent on shore, where the 

 weather was oppressively warm ; the overheated plain accounting for 

 the reaction which ensued, in a thick fog on the 30th, and a South- 

 eastern gale on the 31st : the latter so violent, that the vessels were 

 compelled to put to sea, and could only return in the evening. 



On the morning of the 30th, the weather as yet being clear, I 

 landed with Dr. Fox ; who found the temperature of the sand, at the 

 depth of three feet below the surface of the sand-hillocks, to be 74° 

 Fahr. 



On the 1st of February, I landed for the third and last time ; and 

 a strong, cool wind blowing in from the sea, I found the temperature 

 throughout the afternoon varying very little from the average of 73° 

 Fahr. I spent three-quarters of an hour in an artificial cave, deep 

 enough for reliable observations on the mean annual temperature : 

 the result obtained was 70° Fahr., which, as the country is devoid 

 of true winters and of the shade of trees, may not much exceed the 

 real mean. 



According to the testimony of residents: " ice is hardly known ;" 

 and during the "last four years, snow had fallen but once," on which 

 occasion, as in all previous instances, it "disappeared within twelve 

 hours." Indeed, the scarcity, almost entire absence of deciduous foli- 

 age, affords direct proof of the absence of real winters. 



Rain, however, must sometimes fall ; as was shown by a distinctly- 

 marked dry bed of a torrent, and by the margin of the Upland plain 

 being more or less worn into short ravines, apparently by the action 

 of running water. The plants, too, seemed to have their seasons ; 

 flowers and ripe fruit being seldom seen side by side upon the same 



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