Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 2.djvu/295

] Fitzroy and Mr. Darwin, render any description of them here unnecessary. I need therefore only observe, that the condition of the settlement at the period of our arrival was any thing but flourishing; indeed, from all accounts I heard, rather retrograding. The number of inhabitants had considerably diminished, and amounted, at this time, to only forty-six, independent of the lieutenant-governor and his party, consisting in all of about twenty, and Captain Allen Gardiner, R. N., his wife and two children, who were intending to reside in Patagonia, as soon as an opportunity presented of getting there, for the purpose of preparing the way for a missionary teacher to be sent into the wide field which appears to be opening for their benevolent and pious labours.

The following remarks on the botanical productions of the Falkland Islands, by Dr. Hooker, will be read with much interest, as also some additional particulars respecting the Tussock-grass extracted from the "Flora Antarctica."

"The uniform plains and grassy undulating hills of the Falkland Islands betoken at first sight a country of little interest for the botanist; and a closer inspection proves this to be, to a certain extent, the case. The species are few in number, these two large islands containing hardly one hundred and twenty flowering plants, and their