16 



humidity, its salubrity is not injured thereby, for 

 both husbandmen and travellers sleep in the open 

 air with perfect security. 



Fogs are common on the coast, especialty in the 

 autumn ; they continue but a few hours in the 

 morning, and, as they consist only of watery par- 

 ticles, are not prejudicial either to the health of the 

 inhabitants, or to the vegetation. 



Sect. VI. Winds, — The north and north-west 

 winds usually bring rain, and the south and south- 

 east a clear sky. These serve as infallible indica- 

 tions to the inhabitants, who are observant of them, 

 and furnish them with a kind of barometer to 

 determine previously the state of the weather. The 

 same winds produce directly contrary effects in the 



never in such quantities as to cover the soles of thi^ir shoes.* I 

 have no doubt of the unpleasant occurrence which befèl Mr. Banks 

 and his companion on the island of Fuego ; but a single fact is not 

 sufficient to establish a theory. The crew of the Spanish ship 

 Conception passed the whole winter of 1766 there, without experi- 

 encing any thing of a similar nature, which might have been pro- 

 duced by a concurrence of various accidental causes. Whenever 

 this part of the world becomes well peopled, the cold, which 

 is novf considered as natural to it, will be very sensibly de- 

 creased ; on the lands being cultivated, the air will be rendered as 

 mild and pleasant as that which is enjoyed by the inhabitants of the 

 northern hemisphere situated under similar parallels of latitude, it 

 being a fact well ascertained, that a desert country covered with 

 woods is much moré subject to all the inconveniences of the atmos- 

 phere, than one filled with inhabitants, and improved by cultivation. 

 The account given by Julius Czesar of the climate of 

 France, which at that period was covered with v/ood and unculti- 

 vated, corresponds with that which tlie writers of our times have 

 given of the Magellanic countries. 



* See M. de JVerville's Letters. 



