58 



CHARLES DARWIN 



support a most scanty vegetation. In the more northern 

 parts of the continent, within the limits of the constant 

 south-eastern trade-wind, the eastern side is ornamented by 

 magnificent forests ; whilst the western coast, from lat. 4° S. 

 to lat. 32 0 S., may be described as a desert ; on this western 

 coast, northward of lat. 4° S., where the trade-wind loses its 

 regularity, and heavy torrents of rain fall periodically, the 

 shores of the Pacific, so utterly desert in Peru, assume near 

 Cape Blanco the character of luxuriance so celebrated at 

 Guyaquil and Panama. Hence in the southern and northern 

 parts of the continent, the forest and desert lands occupy 

 reversed positions with respect to the Cordillera, and these 

 positions are apparently determined by the direction of the 

 prevalent winds. In the middle of the continent there is a 

 broad intermediate band, including central Chile and the 

 provinces of La Plata, where the rain-bringing winds have 

 not to pass over lofty mountains, and where the land is nei- 

 ther a desert nor covered by forests. But even the rule, if 

 confined to South America, of trees flourishing only in a 

 climate rendered humid by rain-bearing winds, has a strongly 

 marked exception in the case of the Falkland Islands. These 

 islands, situated in the same latitude with Tierra del Fuego 

 and only between two and three hundred miles distant from 

 it, having a nearly similar climate, with a geological forma- 

 tion almost identical, with favourable situations and the 

 same kind of peaty soil, yet can boast of few plants deserv- 

 ing even the title of bushes ; whilst in Tierra del Fuego it is 

 impossible to find an acre of land not covered by the densest 

 forest. In this case, both the direction of the heavy gales 

 of wind and of the currents of the sea are favourable to 

 the transport of seeds from Tierra del Fuego, as is shown 

 by the canoes and trunks of trees drifted from that country, 

 and frequently thrown on the shores of the Western Falk- 

 land, Hence perhaps it is, that there are many plants in 

 common to the two countries: but with respect to the trees 

 of Tierra del Fuego, even attempts made to transplant them 

 have failed. 



During our stay at Maldonado I collected several quad- 

 rupeds, eighty kinds of birds, and many reptiles, including 

 nine species of snakes. Of the indigenous mammalia, the 



