The scenery of the eastern side of the Straits of Magellan offers little to attract the eye, the shores on both sides being low and little varied. From Cape Froward to Peckett Harbour the Patagonian coast runs nearly due north, and then trends east-north-east for about seventy miles, where the channel is contracted between the northern shore and Elizabeth Island. After passing the island, we entered the part called “The Narrows,” where the Fuegian coast approaches very near to the mainland of the continent. As the day was declining, we issued from this channel into a bay fully thirty miles wide, partly closed by two headlands, which are the landmarks for seamen entering the Straits from the Atlantic. That on the Fuegian side is Cape Espiritu Santo, and the bolder promontory on the northern side is the Cape Virgenes. To a detached rock below the headland English seamen have given the name Dungeness. In the failing light, I could see that the coast westward from Cape Virgenes rises into hills, which appeared to be bare of forest. I should guess their height not to exceed two thousand feet, if it even reaches that limit.
It was almost quite dark when we finally re-entered the Atlantic, and found its waters in a very gentle mood. In these latitudes the name Pacific is not well applied to any part of that which the older navigators more fittingly designated the Southern Ocean.
It was impossible to live for more than a week in winter, at the southern extremity of the American continent, without having one’s attention engaged by the singular features of the climate of this region, and especially by their bearing on wider questions which have of late years assumed fresh importance. Mainly through the writings of Dr. James Croll, and the remarkable ability and perseverance with which he has sustained his views, geologists and students of every other branch of natural science have learned to estimate the influence which the secular changes in the eccentricity of the earth’s orbit may have exercised on the physical condition of our planet. I have ventured, in the Appendix, to discuss some portions of the vast range of subjects treated of by Dr. Croll,[36] and to state the reasons which force me to dissent from some of his conclusions; but I shall here merely say that the impressions derived from my own short experience have been confirmed by subsequent diligent inquiry, and especially by the writings of Dr. Julius Hann, most of which have been published since my return to England.
The belief that the mean temperature of the southern is considerably lower than that of the northern hemisphere was, until recently, prevalent among physical geographers, and has been assumed as an undoubted fact by Dr. Croll. He accounts for it by the predominance of warm ocean-currents that pass from the southern to the northern hemisphere within the tropics, and which, as he maintains, ultimately carry a great portion of the heat of the equatorial regions to the north Temperate and Frigid Zones. I think that this belief, as well as many others regarding physical geography, originated in the fact that physical science in its more exact form, had its birth in Western Europe, a region which, especially as to climate, is altogether exceptional in its character. The further our knowledge, yet too limited, has extended in the southern hemisphere the less ground we find for a belief in the supposed inferiority of its mean temperature. What we do find, in exact conformity with obvious physical principles, is that in the hemisphere where the water surface largely predominates over that of land, the temperature is much more uniform than where the land occupies the larger portion of the surface. In the former, the heat of summer is mainly expended in the work of converting water into vapour, and partially restored in winter in the conversion of vapour into water or ice.
TEMPERATURE OF SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE.
We unfortunately possess but three stations in the southern hemisphere, south of the fiftieth degree of latitude, from which meteorological observations are available, and these are all in the same vicinity—the Falkland Islands, Punta Arenas, and Ushuaja, the mission station in the Beagle Channel at the south side of the main island of Tierra del Fuego. The following table shows the mean temperature of the year at these stations in degrees of Fahrenheit’s scale.
| South latitude. | Mean temperature of year. | |
|---|---|---|
| Falklands | 51° 41′ | about 43·00° |
| Punta Arenas | 53° 25′ | 43·52° |
| Ushuaja | 54° 53′ | 42·39° |
If we compare these with the results of observations at places on the east side of continents in the northern hemisphere, we find the latter to show a very much more rigorous climate. Nikolaiewsk, near the mouth of the Amur, in lat. 52° 8′ north, has a mean annual temperature of 32·4° Fahr.; and at Hopedale, in Labrador, lat. 55° 35′, the mean is certainly not higher than 26° Fahr. Even in the island of Anticosti, at the mouth of the St. Lawrence, lat. 49° 24′ north, the main yearly temperature is only 35·8°, or more than 70 below that of the Falkland Islands. But it may be truly said that, although the stations now under discussion are on the eastern side of the South American continent, they virtually enjoy an insular climate, and that there is probably little difference between their temperature and that of places on the west side of the Straits of Magellan.
On comparing the few places out of Europe from which we possess observations in high northern latitudes, I think that the station which admits of the fairest comparison is that of Unalaschka in the North Pacific. The observations at Illiluk in that island, in lat. 53° 53′ north, show a mean annual temperature of only 38·2° Fahr., while at Ushuaja, 1° farther from the equator, the mean temperature is higher by more that 4°. It is true that at Sitka, in lat. 57° north, we find a mean temperature of 43·28° Fahr., or about the same as that of the Falklands. But the position of Sitka is quite exceptional. It is completely removed from the influence of the cold currents that descend through Behring’s Straits, and a great mountain range protects it from northerly winds; south-westerly winds prevail throughout the year, and a very heavy rainfall, averaging annually eighty-one inches, imports to the air a large portion of heat derived from equatorial regions. On the coast of Western Patagonia and Southern Chili, this source of heat is partly counteracted by the cold antarctic current that sets along the western coast of South America.