There must be, therefore, some peculiar quality in the atmosphere of this otherwise rigorous climate which favours vegetation; for if not, these comparatively delicate plants could not live and flourish through the long and severe winters of this region.

In the summer, the temperature at night was frequently as low as 29° of Fahrenheit, and yet I never noticed the following morning any blight or injury sustained by these plants, even in the slightest degree.

I have occasionally, during the summer, been up the greater part of the night at my observatory, with the internal as well as the external thermometers as low as freezing point, without being particularly warmly clad, and yet not feeling the least cold; and in the winter, the thermometer, on similar occasions, has been at 24° and 26°, without my suffering the slightest inconvenience. This I attributed at the time to the peculiar stillness of the air, although, within a short distance in the offing and overhead, the wind was high.

Whilst upon this subject, there are two facts which may be mentioned as illustrative of the mildness of the climate, notwithstanding the lowness of the temperature. One is the comparative warmth of the sea near its surface, between which and the air, I have in the month of June, the middle of the winter season, observed a difference of 30°, upon which occasion the sea was covered with a cloud of steam. The other is, that parrots and humming-birds, generally the inhabitants of warm regions, are very numerous in the southern and western parts of the Strait—the former feeding upon the seeds of the Winter's bark, and the latter having been seen by us chirping and sipping the sweets of the Fuchsia and other flowers, after two or three days of constant rain, snow, and sleet, during which the thermometer had been at freezing point. We saw them also in the month of May upon the wing, during a snow shower: and they are found in all parts of the south-west and west coasts as far as Valparaiso. I have since been informed that this species is also an inhabitant of Peru; so that it has a range of more than 41° of latitude, the southern limit being 53½° south.^[226]

Tierra del Fuego is divided by several channels; a principal one of which is opposite to Cape Froward, and another fronts Port Gallant. The easternmost, called Magdalen, trends in a due south direction for nineteen miles, and separates the clay slate from the more crystalline rocks, which seem to predominate in Clarence Island, and are chiefly of greenstone; though, at the eastern end, there is much mica slate. At the bottom of Magdalen Sound the channel turns sharply to the westward; and, after a course of about forty miles, meets the Barbara Channel, which, as above-mentioned, communicates with the Strait opposite to Port Gallant, and both fall into the sea together. Magdalen Sound and its continuation, Cockburn Channel, are almost free from islands and rocks; but the Barbara Channel, which separates the granite from the greenstone and mica slate districts, is throughout thickly strewed with islands, which reduce the channel in some parts to a mile, and, in one place, to not more than fifty yards in width. Here, of course, the tide sets with great strength. Several vessels, however, have passed through it under sail; and one ship, a whaler belonging to Messrs. Enderby, working through the Strait, and finding much difficulty in passing to the westward, bore up, and, the wind being fair and the distance to sea only fifty miles, ran through it without accident. The land to the westward of the Barbara Channel is high and rugged; and although in the vallies, ravines, and sheltered nooks, there is no want of vegetation, yet, in comparison with the eastern part of the Strait, it has a very dismal and uninviting appearance. It was called by Sarmiento, 'Santa Ines Island';^[227] but Narborough called it, 'South Desolation; it being,' as he says, 'so desolate land to behold.'^[228]

Clarence Island, which is fifty-two miles long and twenty-three broad, although equally rocky, is much more verdant in appearance. The uniform direction of the headlands of the north shore of the island is remarkable. Upon taking a set of angles with the theodolite placed upon the extremity of the west end of Bell Bay, opposite to Cape Holland, the most prominent points to the south-east, as far as could be seen, were all visible in the field of the telescope at the same bearing. The same thing occurred on the opposite shore of the Strait, where the projections of Cape Gallant, Cape Holland, and Cape Froward, are in the same line of bearing; so that a parallel ruler placed on the map upon the projecting points of the south shore, extended across, will also touch the headlands of the opposite coast.

The eastern island, which had been previously called, and of course retains on our chart the name of King Charles South Land, extends from the entrance of the Strait to the outlet of the Barbara and Cockburn Channels, at Cape Schomberg. The northern part partakes of the geological character of the eastern portion of the Strait. The centre is a continuation of the slate formation, which is evident at a glance, from the uniformity of the direction of the shores of Admiralty Sound, the Gabriel Channel, and all the bays and mountain ranges of Dawson Island. The south shore, or seaward coast line, is principally of greenstone, excepting the shores of the Beagle Channel, which extends from Christmas Sound to Cape San Pio, a distance of a hundred and twenty miles, with a course so direct that no points of the opposite shores cross and intercept a free view through; although its average breadth, which also is very parallel, is not much above a mile, and in some places is but a third of a mile across. The south shores of Hoste and Navarin Islands are of horn-blende rock, which is also the principal component of the islands in the neighbourhood, as well as of the island itself of Cape Horn. The eastern part of King Charles South Land is low, with plains like the Patagonian coast; but the range of high land interrupted at Port Famine extends down the north side of Admiralty Sound, and perhaps, with some few intervals, continues to the south-east extremity of the land, near Cape Good Success, which is the south cape of the west side of Strait Le Maire, and there terminates in lofty mountains covered with snow, one of which, called in the charts 'The Sugar Loaf,' is probably four thousand feet high.

The eastern shore of King Charles South Land, towards the south part, is lofty, but near the northern part is very low. The interior is also low, with extensive plains, abounding with guanacoes, some of which also were found, and shot by the officers of the Beagle, within fifty miles of Cape Horn.

The eastern coast of Patagonia, from the entrance of the Strait of Magalhaens to the River Plata, is comparatively low. From Cape Virgins to Port St. Julian, where porphyritic claystone commences, the coast is formed of clay cliffs, horizontally stratified, and the country is undulating, with extensive plains, or pampas, covered with grass, but without trees. At Port St. Julian, the country becomes hilly, and continues so as far to the northward as latitude 44°, the rock being porphyritic. The clay formation to the southward has been likened to the appearance of the coast of Kent, and at a short distance it bears certainly a very great resemblance to it; but the cliffs, instead of being of chalk, are composed of a soft marly clay, without any gravel or impressions of organic remains, excepting at Port St. Julian, where fossil shells, both bivalves and univalves, are found imbedded in clay cliffs; and on the surface are lying, strewed about, large oyster-shells.

In the clay formation there are two rivers: the Gallegos, in lat. 51° 38′; and Port Santa Cruz, in lat. 50° 7′. The Gallegos, at high water, may be easily entered, but at low water the banks are dry to a great extent; a channel, however, is left on its south side, of sufficient depth for a small vessel: the tide rises forty-six feet, and the stream is very strong.

Port Desire, in 47° 45′ south latitude, has a narrow entrance with strong tides; but affords in the offing very good anchorage as well as shelter from the prevailing winds, which are offshore, or westerly. The inlet extends up the country, nearly in a west direction, for eighteen miles; but the land is dry and parched, and very unsuitable for the establishment which the Spanish government formed there not many years since, and of which evident traces remain to this day.

St. George's Gulf, called in the old charts 'Bahia sin Fondo,' or Deep-Sea Gulf, was formerly considered to be a deep sinuosity of the coast, into which a river emptied its waters after winding through a large tract of country; for, until the Descubierta and Atrevida's voyage of discovery, very vague accounts had been given of this, or indeed of any other part of the coast. The Gulf, upon that examination, was found to possess no river or creek in any part excepting on the north side, where there are several deep bays and coves, which are, and have been frequented by our sealing vessels. The country about is dry and parched, although partially covered with small shrubs, and a wiry grass on which large herds of guanacoes feed.

According to Falkner (the Jesuit missionary, who resided many years among the Indian tribes inhabiting the country about Buenos Ayres), the eastern coast between the latitudes of 41° and 51° is frequented by the natives for the purpose only of burying the dead: they have, however, been occasionally met with travelling along the coast, apparently without any particular object in view. Near Port Desire I have seen the graves of the Indians on the summit of the hills, but the bodies had been removed, probably by the Indians themselves; for we are informed by Falkner, that, after the dead have been interred twelve months, the graves are visited by the tribe, for the purpose of collecting the bones and conveying them to their family sepulchres, where they are set up and adorned with all the beads and ornaments the friends and family of the deceased can collect for the occasion. The ceremony is performed by certain women of the tribe whose peculiar office it is to attend to these rites.

In the year 1828, from the commencement of January to the middle of August, the Adventure (the ship I commanded) was at anchor at Port Famine, in the Strait of Magalhaens, in latitude 53° 38¼′ south, and longitude 70° 54′ west of Greenwich; and during the whole of that time a careful meteorological journal was kept. The temperature was registered from a very good thermometer of Fahrenheit's scale, suspended within a copper cylindrical case of nine inches diameter, and perforated above and below with holes, to admit a free current of air. The cylinder was fixed to the roof of a shed, thatched with dried leaves to shelter it from the sun, while the sides were open. The barometer (a mountain barometer made by Newman, with an iron cylinder) was hung up in the observatory, five feet above the high-water mark, and both instruments were examined carefully and regularly at the following hours, namely: six and nine o'clock in the morning, at noon, and at three and six o'clock in the evening. The state of the atmosphere was observed daily, by Daniel's hygrometer, at three o'clock in the afternoon. The maximum and minimum temperatures were also observed twice in twenty-four hours, from a Six's thermometer, namely: at nine o'clock in the morning, and at nine in the evening. From this journal the following abstract has been drawn up:—

SUMMARY OF METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS.

———

Table I.

Table II.

Table III.

Table IV.

From the preceding tables it will be seen that the mean temperature for the autumnal period (the months of February, March, and April) was 47°.2; the maximum and minimum were respectively 68° and 28°. For the brumal period, the three following months, the mean temperature was 34°.5, and the maximum and minimum 49°.5 and 12°.6. During the former, or autumnal period, the barometer ranged between 30.099 and 28.768 inches, and for the latter it was between 30.5 and 28.274 inches. The range for the first being 1.331 inches, and for the last 2.226 inches.

EXTRACT

FROM THE

BEAGLE'S 'GAME' BOOK, 1830.

Note.—Otters, foxes, and seal, were tried more than once, but discarded. Very young seal, however, were liked, as well as young penguins.

EXTRACT

FROM THE

BEAGLE'S 'GAME' BOOK, 1830.

INDEX.