3°6 
CHO NOS ARCHIPELAGO 
CHAP. 
—an Empetrum (E. rubrum), like our heath,—a rush (Juncus 
grandiflorus), are nearly the only ones that grow on the swampy 
surface. These plants, though possessing a very close general 
resemblance to the English species of the same genera, are 
different. In the more level parts of the country, the surface 
of the peat is broken up into little pools of water, which stand 
at different heights, and appear as if artificially excavated. 
Small streams of water, flowing underground, complete the 
disorganisation of the vegetable matter, and consolidate the 
whole. 
The climate of the southern part of America appears 
particularly favourable to the production of peat. In the 
Falkland Islands almost every kind of plant, even the coarse 
grass which covers the whole surface of the land, becomes 
converted into this substance: scarcely any situation checks its 
growth ; some of the beds are as much as twelve feet thick, 
and the lower part becomes so solid when dry, that it will 
hardly burn. Although every plant lends its aid, yet in most 
parts the Astelia is the most efficient. It is rather a singular 
circumstance, as being so very different from what occurs in 
Europe, that I nowhere saw moss forming by its decay any 
portion of the peat in South America. With respect to the 
northern limit at which the climate allows of that peculiar kind 
of slow decomposition which is necessary for its production, I 
believe that in Chiloe (lat. 41 ° to 42°), although there is much 
swampy ground, no well-characterised peat occurs : but in the 
Chonos Islands, three degrees farther southward, we have seen 
that it is abundant. On the eastern coast in La Plata (lat. 35 0 ) 
I was told by a Spanish resident, who had visited Ireland, that 
he had often sought for this substance, but had never been able 
to find any. He showed me, as the nearest approach to it 
which he had discovered, a black peaty soil, so penetrated 
with roots as to allow of an extremely slow and imperfect 
combustion. 
The zoology of these broken islets of the Chonos Archipelago 
is, as might have been expected, very poor. Of quadrupeds two 
aquatic kinds are common. The Myopotamus Coypus (like a 
beaver, but with a round tail) is well known from its fine fur, 
which is an object of trade throughout the tributaries of La 
