Notes of a Naturalist in South America

Abstract

LEAVING Valparaiso, and steering southwards amongst the evergreen islands of the South Chilian Archipelago and Fuegia, Mr. Ball encountered all the disagreeables of those inhospitable and desolate regions, signalised by a fall of the barometer and thermometer, gales of wind, the rolling seas of a tempestuous ocean, fogs, and darkness. And here he observes (and the observation is new to us) that one of the main features of the Andes suffers a great change. The western chain, which runs for 900 miles as an almost continuous range of high land on the coast of Chili, from lat. 40° S. to the Straits of Magellan becomes separated from the range to the east of it by a broad belt of low country including several large lakes. Further south the chain first dips under the ocean, to emerge as the great Island of Chiloe and the Chonos Archipelago, after which it joins the continent again at Cape Tres Montes. Further south is the Gulf of Peñas, forty miles wide, beyond which are the famous channels that lead into the Straits of Magellan. The new geographical features are accompanied by a change of climate, and this again is marked by the appearance of many types of the so-called Antarctic (or rather Fuegian) flora, which may be traced northward from Fuegia to the Mountains of Valdivia, and some few of which types, profiting by the fogs of the desert region of the Andes, straggle northwards into Northern Chili. In Messier's Channel, lat. 50° S., the wild celery of Europe was found, of which Mr. Ball says: “Growing in a region where it is little exposed to sunshine, it has less of the characteristic smell of our wild plant, and the leaves may be eaten raw as salad, or boiled, which is not the case with our plant until the gardener, by heaping soil about the roots, diminishes the pungency of the smell and flavour.” “The 5th of June,” he goes on to say, “my first day in the channel, will ever remain a bright spot in my memory. Wellington Island, which lay on our right, is over 150 miles in length, a rough mountain range, averaging apparently about 300 feet in height, with a moderately uniform coast-line. On the other hand, the mainland presents a constantly varying outline, indented by numberless coves and several deep narrow sounds rnnning far into the recesses of the Cordillera. In the intermediate channels crowds of islands, some rising to the size of mountains, some mere rocks peeping above the water, present an endless variety of form and outline. That which gives the scenery a unique character is the wealth of vegetation that adorns this seemingly inclement region. From the water's edge to a height which I estimated at 1400 feet, the rugged slopes were covered with an unbroken mantle of evergreen trees and shrubs. Above that height the bare declivities were clothed with snow, mottled at first by projecting rocks, but evidently lying deep upon the higher ranges. I can find no language to give any impression of the variety of the scenes that followed in quick succession against the bright blue background of a cloudless sky, and lit up by a northern sun that illumined each new prospect as we advanced.”