349 
summer, rather than by the mean of the year. As the 
summer in Tierra del Fuego is so very wretched, we ought 
not to feel surprised at the fact stated by Captain King, that 
in the Strait of Magellan that line descends to about 3,000 
or 4,000 feet. In the northern hemisphere we must travel 
fourteen degrees nearer the pole to meet with so low a limit, 
namely, between 60° and 70° on the mountains of Norway." 
When in latitude 55° south, equivalent to Newcastle, he 
says, Early in the morning we arrived at the point where 
the Beagle channel divides itself into two arms, and we 
entered the northern one. The scenery here becomes even 
grander than before. The lofty mountains on the north side 
compose the granite axis or back bone of the whole country. 
They were covered by a wide mantle of perpetual snow, 
and numerous cascades poured their waters through the woods 
into the narrow channel below. In many parts magnificent 
glaciers extended from the mountain side to the water's edge. 
It is scarcely possible to imagine anything more beautiful 
than the beryl-like blue of the glacier, and especially when 
contrasted with the dead white of an expanse of snow. As 
fragments fell from the glacier into the water, they floated 
away, and the channel, with its icebergs, represented in 
miniature the polar sea." 
He afterwards describes some of the immense fields of ice 
which came under his notice, one of them twenty miles long 
and five broad. Yet even in this inhospitable climate, vege- 
tation thrives most luxuriantly, and large woody-stemmed 
trees of Fuchsia and Veronica, in England considered and 
treated as tender plants, were found in full flower, within a 
very short distance of the base of a mountain covered for 
two-thirds down with snow, and with the temperature at 36°. 
Humming-birds were also seen sipping the sweets of the 
flowers, after two or three days of constant rain, snow, and 
frost.* 
* Darwin, p. 272. 
