Again of the Fuegians: “Simple circumstances—such as the beauty of scarlet cloth or blue beads, the absence of women, our care in washing ourselves—excited their admiration far more than any grand or complicated object, such as our ship. Bougainville has well remarked concerning these people, that they treat the ‘chef-d’œuvres de l’industrie humaine, comme ils traitent les loix de la nature es ses phénomènes.’”
He was informed of a tribe of foot Indians now changing into horse Indians apparently in Patagonia.
“With the exception of a few berries, chiefly of a dwarf arbutus, the natives [i. e. of Tierra del Fuego][198] eat no vegetable food besides this fungus” (Cyttaria Darwinii). The “only country ... where a cryptogamic plant affords a staple article of food.”
No reptiles in Tierra del Fuego nor in Falkland Islands.
Describes a species of kelp there,—Macrocystis pyrifera. “I know few things more surprising than to see this plant growing and flourishing amidst those great breakers of the Western Ocean, which no mass of rock, let it be ever so hard, can long resist.... A few [stems][199] taken together are sufficiently strong to support the weight of the large loose stones to which, in the inland channels, they grow attached; and yet some of these stones were so heavy that, when drawn to the surface, they could scarcely be lifted into a boat by one person.” Captain Cook thought that some of it grew to the length of three hundred and sixty feet. “The beds of this sea-weed, even when not of great breadth,” says D., “make excellent natural floating breakwaters. It is quite curious to see, in an exposed harbor, how soon the waves from the open sea, as they travel through the straggling stems, sink in height, and pass into smooth water.”
Number of living creatures of all orders whose existence seems to depend on the kelp; a volume might be written on them. If a forest were destroyed anywhere, so many species would not perish as if this weed were, and with the fish would go many birds and larger marine animals, and hence the Fuegian himself perchance.
Tree ferns in Van Diemen’s Land (lat. 45°) six feet in circumference.
Missionaries encountered icebergs in Patagonia in latitude corresponding to the Lake of Geneva, in a season corresponding to June in Europe. In Europe, the most southern glacier which comes down to the sea is on coast of Norway, latitude 67°,—20°, or 1230 [geographical miles] nearer the pole.
Erratic boulders not observed in the intertropical parts of the world; due to icebergs or glaciers.
Under soil perpetually frozen in North America in 56° at three feet; in Siberia in 62° at twelve to fifteen feet.