-T
! lift
answering to our December, January, and February, wliicb
three months appear to be the coldest, and the mean of these
is 33° .08.* Dublin is nearly in the same latitude in the
northern hemisphere as Port Famine is in the southern, and
we will take its temperature as a means of comparison.
D u b l i n ! . .
P o r t F am in e
D iffe re n c e
530-21' N,
5 3 8 8 ' S
0 17'
Summer
Temperature
590 ,54
5 0
9 .5 4
Winter
Temperature
3 9 ° .2
33 .0 8
6 .12
2 0 ° .3 4
16 .9 2
Meau of
Summer ami
Wiuter.
4 9 0 .37
41 .5 4
3 .4 2 7 .83
It will be seen by this that the temperature at Port Famine
is very considerably lower, both during summer and winter,
than at Dublin, and that at the former the difference between
the seasons is not so great, or that the climate is there more
equable. It seems the general opinion of those who have
visited this country, that the frosts are not so severe or
so long as in England. The sealers say that throughout
the year they wear the same quantity of clothing. Nevertheless
Captain King states, that during the winter of 1828
the temperature was once as low a s ! 12°.6. I have drawn
up these rough and approximate statements merely for the
sake of illustrating some of the following remarks.
* T h is m e a n m u s t b e a l it tl e to o low, b e c au s e th e w h o le o f A u g u s t is
n o t in c lu d e d . I se e V o n B u c h says, “ w e c a n h a rd ly a ssign to S a lte n -
fiord, N o rw a y ( in la t. 6 7 °, o r 13° 2-2' n e a re r th e p o le th a n P o r t F am in e ) a
h ig h e r m e a n t em p e r a tu r e th a n 3 4 °, n o r a h ig h e r tem p e r a tu r e fo r th e wa rm
m o n th o f J u ly th a n 5 7 ° .8 .” (T r a v e ls th ro u g h No rw ay , p . 123.) C a p ta in
K in g aiv es a s th e m e a n fo r F e b ru a ry , w h ich p ro b ab ly is th e Iio tte s t m o n th
a t P o r t F am in e , o n ly a t 6 1 ° . l . S om e o b se rv a tio n s m ad e a t th e F a lk la n d
Is la n d s (2 ° 13' n o r th o f P o r t F am in e ) w h ich a re o f te n q u o te d , give as
th e m e a n fo r th e w h o le y e a r 4 7 ° .3 , a n d fo r th e s um m e r 5 3 ° .1 . T h e s e
re s u lts a re v e ry m u ch h ig h e r th a n w h a t I s h o u ld h a v e a n tic ip a te d , from
th e c lim a te o f t h e n e ig h b o u r in g m a in lan d .
! T h is lin e is ta k e n from B a r to n ’s L e c tu r e s o n th e G e o g ra p h y o f
P l a n ts .
! I n th is w re tc h e d c lim a te , su b je c t to su ch e x tr em e c o ld , is i t n o t m o st
w o n d e rfu l, t h a t h um a n b e in g s sh o u ld b e a b le to e x is t u n c lo th e d a n d
w ith o u t s h e lte r ?
ft :
The kind of climate here described appears to be common to
the southern parts of the whole of the southern hemisphere.
Although so inhospitable to our feelings, and to most of the
plants from the warmer parts of Europe, yet it is most favourable
to the native vegetation. The forests, which cover the
entire country between the latitudes of 38° and 45°, rival in
luxuriance those of the glowing intertropical regions. Whilst
in Chiloe (lat. 42°) I could almost have fancied myself in
Brazil. Stately trees of many kinds, with smooth and highly
coloured barks, are loaded by parasitical plants of the mono-
cotyledonous structure ; large and elegant ferns are numerous ;
and arborescent grasses intwine the trees into one entangled
mass, to the height of thirty or forty feet above the ground.
Palm-trees grow in lat. 37° ; an arborescent grass very like
a bamboo in 40° ; and another closely-aUied Mnd, of great
length but not erect, even as far south as 45°.
In another part of this same hemisphere, which has so
uniform a character owing to its large proportional area of
sea, Forster found parasitical orchideous plants living south
of lat. 45° in New Zealand. Tree-ferns thrive luxuriantly
near Hobart Town, in Van Diemen’s Land. I measured
one there which was exactly six feet in circumference ; and
its height from the ground to the base of the fronds appeared
to be very little under twenty. Mr. Brown says*
“ an arborescent species of the same genus {Bicksonia) was
found by Forster, in New Zealand, at Dusky Bay, in nearly
46° S., the highest latitude in which tree-ferns have yet been
observed. It is remarkable that, although they have so considerable
a range in the southern hemisphere, no tree-fern
has been found beyond the northern tropic : a distribution
in the two hemispheres somewhat similar to this has been
already noticed respecting the Orchideæ that are parasitical
on trees.”
Even in Tierra del Fuego, Captain King describes the
“ vegetation thriving most luxuriantly, and large woody stem-
* A p p e n d ix to F lin d e r ’s Vo y ag e, p p . 5 7 5 a n d 5 8 4 .