The Equable, Humid, And Windy Climate Of Tierra Del
Fuego Extends, With Only A Small Increase Of Heat, For Many
Degrees Along The West Coast Of The Continent.
The forests
for 600 miles northward of Cape Horn, have a very similar
aspect.
As a proof of the equable climate, even for 300 or
400 miles still further northward, I may mention that in
Chiloe (corresponding in latitude with the northern parts
of Spain) the peach seldom produces fruit, whilst strawberries
and apples thrive to perfection. Even the crops of
barley and wheat [9] are often brought into the houses to be
dried and ripened. At Valdivia (in the same latitude of
40 degs., with Madrid) grapes and figs ripen, but are not
common; olives seldom ripen even partially, and oranges not at
all. These fruits, in corresponding latitudes in Europe, are
well known to succeed to perfection; and even in this continent,
at the Rio Negro, under nearly the same parallel
with Valdivia, sweet potatoes (convolvulus) are cultivated;
and grapes, figs, olives, oranges, water and musk melons,
produce abundant fruit. Although the humid and equable
climate of Chiloe, and of the coast northward and southward
of it, is so unfavourable to our fruits, yet the native
forests, from lat. 45 to 38 degs., almost rival in luxuriance
those of the glowing intertropical regions. Stately trees of
many kinds, with smooth and highly coloured barks, are loaded
by parasitical monocotyledonous plants; large and elegant
ferns are numerous, and arborescent grasses entwine the
trees into one entangled mass to the height of thirty or forty
feet above the ground.
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