278 



TIERRA DEL FUEGO. 



June, 1834. 



In considering this table, and beginning from the south^ 

 we observe, that through the first twelve degrees, the height 

 of the snow-line rises only a little more than 2000 feet. In 

 this space the climate and productions of the country are in 

 many respects very uniform. In the succeeding nine degrees 

 the rise is no less than nine thousand feet. Before any one 

 pronounces this to be impossible, let him reflect well that 

 the height of the snow-line very much depends on the heat 

 of summer. In Chiloe no fruit, excepting apples and straw- 

 berries, comes to perfection ; it is even oftentimes necessary 

 to carry the barley and corn into, the houses to be ripened 

 on the other hand, in central Chile^ even the sugar-cane t 

 has been cultivated out of doors, and during a long summer 

 of seven months the sky is seldom clouded, and rain never 

 falls. The island of Chiloe, as well as the neighbouring main- 



treme variation. I was told, that during one remarkably dry and long 

 summer, all the snow disappeared from Aconcagua. Not being at the 

 time aware of the extraordinary elevation of this mountain (23,000), I did 

 not closely cross-question my informers. It must be remembered that 

 even in ordinary summers the sky is generally cloudless for six or seven 

 months, that no fresh snow falls, and that the atmosphere is excessively 

 dry. It may be asked whether vast quantities of snow would not, under this 

 condition of circumstances, be evaporated? so that it might be possible 

 that all the snow should disappear from a mountain without the tempera- 

 ture having risen above the freezing point. Mr. Miers (vol. i., p. 384) 

 says he passed the Cordillera by the Cumbre Pass on May 30th, I8I9, 

 " when not the smallest vestige of snow was observable in any part of 

 the Andes." Yet Aconcagua is in full view in the approach to this pass. 

 Mr. Miers, in another part (p. 383), makes a general assertion to the 

 same effect. 



§ See Mr, Pentland s most interesting paper in the Geograph. Journal, 

 read March 1835. 



II Journal of Geograph. Soc, vol. i., p. 165. 



* For this fact I may quote, as additional authority, Aguerros Descrip- 

 cion Historial de la Provincia de Chiloe, 1791, p. 94. 



-j- Miers's Chile, vol. i., p. 415. It is said that the sugar-cane grew at 

 Ingenio, lat. 32°-33°, but not in sufficient quantity to make the manu- 

 facture profitable. In the valley of Quillota, south of Ingenio, I saw 

 some large date palm-trees. 



