bn/VP. SOUTH AMERICA. 67 



very thin ftiiff will not foon be wet through •, but the 

 Continuance of the mills during the whole winter with- 

 out being exhaled by the fun^ renders the mod arid 

 iand barren parts fertile. For the fame reafon they turn 

 the difagreeable dull in the ftreets of Lima into a 

 mud, which is rather more ofFenfivc. 



The winds which prevail during the wintef, are 

 nearly, though not exactly fouth ; Ibmetimes fhifting 

 ia little to the S, E. between which and the fouth 

 they always blow.* This we obferved to have con- 

 ftantly happened during the two winters we fpent 

 in this country, one at Lima, arid the other at Cal-^ 

 lao ; the former in the year 1742, and the latter 

 in 1743. The firft was one of the moft fevere that 

 had been felt^ and the cold general in all that part 

 of America to Cape Horn. In Chili, Baidivia^ and 

 Chiloe, the cold was. proportionable to the latitudes 5 

 and at Lima it occafioned conftipations and fluxions^ 

 which fwept away fuch numbers, that it feemed to 

 I'efemble a peftilence. And though diforders of this 

 kind are very common in the winter feafon, they are 

 rarely attended with the danger which then accom- 

 panied them* 



. Th£ extraordinary Angularity obferved in the klng^ 

 dom of Peru, namely, that it never rains ; or to 

 fpeak more properly, that the clouds do not convert 

 themfelves into formal fhowers, has induced many 

 fiaturalifts to enquire into the caufe ; but in their 

 folutions of this difficulty they have varied, and in- 

 vented feveral hypothefes to account for io ftrange 

 an efFe6l. Some attribute it to the conftancy of the 

 foiith winds^ concluding, that as they are incelTant, 

 they propel the vapours rifmg from the fea, to the 

 fame point 5 and thus by never reiling in any part, 

 as no oppofite winds blow during the whole year 



* The wind here blows S. by E. to S by W. but ganerally 

 ai)Out S. S. E. from June to December. A, 



F I to 



