XIII 
FORMATION OF PEAT 
305 
variety which by some botanists has been considered as 
specifically distinct. It is remarkable that the same plant 
should be found on the sterile mountains of central Chile, 
where a drop of rain does not fall for more than six months, 
and within the damp forests of these southern islands. 
In the central parts of the Chonos Archipelago (lat. 45°), 
the forest has very much the same character with that along the 
whole west coast, for 600 miles southward to Cape Horn. 
The arborescent grass of Chiloe is not found here ; while the 
beech of Tierra del Fuego grows to a good size, and forms a 
considerable proportion of the wood ; not, however, in the same 
exclusive manner as it does farther southward. Cryptogamic 
plants here find a most congenial climate. In the Strait of 
Magellan, as I have before remarked, 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. 1 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 flat land supports the 
most luxuriant forests. Here, within the Chonos Archipelago, 
the nature of the climate more closely approaches that of 
Tierra del Fuego than that of northern Chiloe ; for every patch 
of level ground is covered by two species of plants (Astelia 
pumila and Donatia magellanica), which by their joint decay 
compose 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 succeeding one 
to the other round the central tap-root ; the lower ones soon 
decay, and in tracing a root downwards in the peat, the leaves, 
yet holding their place, can be observed passing through every 
stage of decomposition, till the whole becomes blended in one 
confused mass. The Astelia is assisted by a few other plants, 
—here and there a small creeping Myrtus (M. nummularia), 
with a woody stem like our cranberry and with a sweet berry, 
1 By sweeping with my insect-net, I procured from these situations a considerable 
number of minute insects, of the family of Staphylinidae, and others allied to 
Pselaphus, and minute Hymenoptera. But the most characteristic family in number, 
both of individuals and species, throughout the more open parts of Chiloe and Chonos 
is that of the Telephoridse. 
X 
