Jan. 1835. 



FORMATION OF PEAT. 



349 



ter which is found along the whole west coast for 600 miles 

 to Cape Horn. The arborescent grass of Chiloe has here 

 ceased to exist ; while the beech of Tierra del Fuego both 

 grows to a good size, and forms a considerable proportion of 

 the wood ; not, however, in the same exclusive manner as it 

 does further to the southward. Cryptogamic plants here find 

 a most congenial climate. In the neighbourhood of the Strait 

 of Magellan, I have before remarked that the country appears 

 too cold and wet to allow of their arriving at perfection ; but 

 in these islands, within the forest, the number of species, and 

 great abundance of mosses, lichens, and small ferns, is quite 

 extraordinary.* In Tierra del Fuego trees grow only on the 

 hill- sides ; every level piece of land being invariably covered 

 by a thick bed of peat ; but in Chiloe the same kind of situ- 

 ation supports the most luxuriant forest. Here, within the 

 Chonos Archipelago, the nature of the climate more closely 

 approaches that of the southern, than that of the northern, of 

 these two countries. Nearly every patch of level ground 

 is covered by two species of plants {Asteliapumila of Brown,t 

 and Dcnatia magellanica), which by their joint decay com- 

 pose a thick bed of elastic peat. 



In Tierra del Fuego, above the region of woodland, the 

 former of these eminently sociable plants is the chief agent 

 in the production of peat. Fresh leaves are always succeed- 

 ing one to the other, round the central tap root ; the lower 

 ones soon decay; and in tracing a root downward in the 

 peat, the leaves (yet holding their position) can be ob- 

 served passing through every stage of decomposition, till the 

 whole becomes blended in one confused mass. The Astelia 

 is assisted by few other plants ; here and there a small creep- 

 ing one (Mi/rtus nummularin), with a woody stem like our 



* By sweeping with my insect-net, I procured from these situations a 

 considerable number of minute insects of the family of Staphyhnidse, and 

 others allied to Pselaphus, and minute Hymenoptera. But the most 

 characteristic family in number of both individuals and species, through- 

 out the more open parts of Chiloe and Chonos, is that of the Telephoridae. 



f Anthcricum trifnrium of Solander. 



