CAPE NEGRO FRESIIWATEIl BAY. Jan. 1827. 



The following day was calm, and so warm, that we thought 

 if Wallis and Cordova were correct in describing the weather 

 they met with, Duclos Guyot was equally entitled to credit ; 

 and we began to hope we had anticipated worse weather 

 than we should experience. But this was an unusually fine 

 day, and many weeks elapsed, afterwards, without its equal. 

 The temperature of the air, in the shade on the beach, was 

 67i°, on the sand 87i° ; and that of the water 55°. Other 

 observations were made, as well as a plan of the bay, of which 

 there is a description in the Sailing Directions. 



Here we first noticed the character of the vegetation in the 

 Strait, as so different from that of Cape Gregory and other 

 parts of the Patagonian coast, which is mainly attributable to 

 the change of soil ; the northern part being a very poor clay, 

 whilst here a schistose sub-soil is covered by a mixture of 

 alluvium, deposited by mountain streams ; and decomposed 

 vegetable matter, which, from the thickness of the forests, is 

 in great quantity. 



Two specimens of beech {Fagus hetuloides and antarcticd)^ 

 the former an evergreen, — and the winter's bark {Wintera 

 aromatica), are the only trees of large size that we found 

 here ; but the underwood is very thick, and composed of a 

 great variety of plants, of which Arbutus rigida, two or three 

 species of Berberis, and a wild currant {Ribes antarctica^ 

 Bankes and Solander MSS.), at this time in flower, and 

 forming long clustering bunches of young fruit, were the 

 most remarkable. The berberis produces a berry of acidulous 

 taste, that promised to be useful to us. A species of wild 

 celery, also, which grows abundantly near the sea-shore, was 

 valuable as an antiscorbutic. The trees in the immediate 

 vicinity of the shore are small, but the beach was strewed with 

 trunks of large trees, which seemed to have been drifted there 

 by gales and high tides. A river falls into the bay, by a very 

 narrow channel, near its south end ; but it is small, and so 

 blocked up by trees as not to be navigable even for the smallest 

 boat : indeed, it is merely a mountain torrent, varying in size 

 according to the state of the weather. 



