To the extreme
point of Tierra del Fuego, is densely covered by impenetrable
forests.
On the eastern side of the Cordillera, over the same
extent of latitude, where a blue sky and a fine climate prove
that the atmosphere has been deprived of its moisture by
passing over the mountains, the arid plains of Patagonia
support a most scanty vegetation. In the more northern
parts of the continent, within the limits of the constant
south-eastern trade-wind, the eastern side is ornamented by
magnificent forests; whilst the western coast, from lat.
4 degs. S. to lat. 32 degs. S., may be described as a
desert; on this western coast, northward of lat. 4 degs.
S., where the trade-wind loses its regularity, and heavy
torrents of rain fall periodically, the shores of the
Pacific, so utterly desert in Peru, assume near Cape
Blanco the character of luxuriance so celebrated at
Guyaquil and Panama. Hence in the southern and northern
parts of the continent, the forest and desert lands occupy
reversed positions with respect to the Cordillera, and these
positions are apparently determined by the direction of the
prevalent winds. In the middle of the continent there is a
broad intermediate band, including central Chile and the
provinces of La Plata, where the rain-bringing winds have
not to pass over lofty mountains, and where the land is neither
a desert nor covered by forests. But even the rule, if
confined to South America, of trees flourishing only in a
climate rendered humid by rain-bearing winds, has a strongly
marked exception in the case of the Falkland Islands.
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