Philip Parker King

“ The nature of the soil is not favorable to plants which take a deep root, and, therefore, only shrubs and grasses are found: the former are thinly scattered over the extensive plains which characterize this country; but the grasses are abundant, and although of a harsh and dry appearance, must be nourishing, for they form the chosen food of numerous and large herds of guanacoes.
Besides the evergreen beech above-mentioned, there are but few other trees in the Strait that can be considered as timber trees. ”

“ The south-eastern shore is high and rocky, and generally precipitous, but the northern is formed by low undulating grassy plains, free from trees, and precisely like the country about the entrance of the Strait. At the north-west corner of the water, Captain Fitzroy found the mouth of a channel which carried him in a north-west direction for twelve miles, when it opened into another inland saltwater lake, about thirty-four miles long and twenty wide. ”

“ At the western end of the Fitzroy Channel, which unites the waters, the shore is well clothed on the north side with luxuriant grass and trefoil, with here and there a sprinkling of brushwood, but is entirely destitute of trees. The soil, although dry, is light and tolerably good; but the ground is perforated everywhere by some burrowing animal, probably skunks or cavias. The tracks of horses were noticed in many places, and the bones of guanacoes were scattered about. ”

“ The soil then becomes apparently a mixture of decomposed slate and clay; the slate gradually disappearing on approaching to Cape Negro, where the rock partakes of the character of the east coast. Here again we observe, along with the change of geological character, the reappearance of islands, the soil of which is clayey, but with masses of granite, hornblende rock and clay slate protruding in many places through the superficial soil, which, although it yields a poor grass, is entirely destitute of trees. ”

“ I have frequently noticed such appearances in large ports and inlet, but never in any channel.' Neither wigwams, nor traces of Indians, were seen in this sound, another proof, were one required, of the sound not communicating with the Skyring Water; for the Indians very rarely visit these deep inlets, but are always to be found in narrow straits or communicating channels, where, from the strength of the tide, seals and porpoises, which constitute the principal food of the Fuegian Indians, abound. ”

“ Port Santa Cruz in latitude 50° 7′ and in 49° 12′ is Port San Julian. The first does not extend further into the interior than forty miles from the coast, and to about the same distance Port Santa Cruz penetrates; but Port San Julian is of much smaller size, and Coy Inlet, in latitude 50° 58′, can only be entered by boats. The Gallegos, at high water, may be easily entered, but, at low water, the banks are dry to a great extent; a channel, however, is left on its south side of sufficient depth for a small vessel; the tide rises here forty-six feet, and the stream is very strong. ”

“ In this portion the rock is, for the most part, granite and greenstone.
Near the centre of the Strait, the rock being clay-slate, the mountains are higher, and more precipitous and rugged in their outline; and consequently not easily to be ascended. They are in general three thousand feet, but some are found to be four thousand feet in height; and one, Mount Sarmiento, is upwards of six thousand feet high, and is covered throughout the year with snow. The line of perpetual snow in the Strait seems to be about three thousand five hundred or four thousand feet above the sea ”

“ Andrew, .extends to the base of the snowy range of the Cordillera, and there Lieutenant Skyring describes it to be 'suddenly and boldly closed by tremendous and astonishing glaciers.'
Sarmiento's 'Puerto Bueno' was found to be, as the name describes it, an excellent harbour. The depth of water all over is not more than nine fathoms, an advantage which few harbour, hereabout possess: a ship is in perfect security in any part, but this is the only peculiar advantage the port offers; for wood and water are equally abundant; fish are as easily to be caught ”

“ There is no part of the Strait more exposed to the wind tan this, for it faces the reach to the west of Cape Froward, down which the wind constantly blows, and brings with it a succession of rain, sleet, or snow; and in the winter months, from April to August the ground is covered with a layer of snow, from six inches to two or three feet in depth.
There must be, therefore, some peculiar quality in the atmosphere of this otherwise rigorous climate which favours vegetation ”

“ One circumstance, however, deserves to be mentioned, which may in some measure account for the innocuous effort of so low a temperature. I have occasionally, during the summer, been up the greater part of the night at my observatory, with the internal as well as the external thermometers as low as freezing point, without being particularly warmly clad, and yet not feeling the least cold; and in the winter, the thermometer, on similar occasions, has been at 24° and 26° without my suffering the slightest inconvenience. ”

“ The Guaianeco islands form the southern head of the Gulf of Peñas; then follows Wellington Island, separated from the main by the Mesier Channel, which had not been previously explored, its mouth only being laid down in the charts compiled from the information of Machado, a pilot who was sent in 1769 by the viceroy of Peru to examine the coast from Chiloe to the Strait of Magalhaens [5] . This channel is also noticed in one of the two missionary voyages above mentioned ”

“ The eastern shores of the interior channels were found to be low plains, with no hills nor mountains visible in the distance, and such being the feature also of the northern shores of the Otway and Skyring Waters, it is probable that all the country to the east of the sounds is a continued pampa or plain. ”

“ It would be irrelevant to enter here into the history of Sarmiento's voyage, or indeed of any other connected with the coasts I am about to describe. Modern surveys are made so much more in detail than what was formerly practised or considered necessary, that little use can be derived from the charts and plans that have been hitherto formed ”

“ The length of the channel is one hundred and sixty miles, and it joins the Concepcion Strait behind the Madre de Dios archipelago, at the Braze Ancho of Sarmiento. Lieutenant Skyring, who superintended this particular part of the survey, called the land which it insulates, Wellington Island; the seaward-coast of which, bearing on the old chart the name of Campaña, is probably fronted by one or more islands. ”

“ During the winter months these rivers become swollen and overflow their banks, and deposit a quantity of alluvium, which, blending with the fallen leaves and other putrescent substances, produces a good superficial soil, in which trees grow to a large size, and the shrubs and smaller plants become particularly luxuriant and productive.
At Port Famine, and in its neighbourhood, the evergreen beech (Fagus betuloides) grows in the greatest abundance, and reaches a very large size. Trees of this species, of three feet in diameter, aee abundant; of four feet them are many ”