Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/25

 FALKLAND ISLANDS 15 north shore iu 1594. In 1598 Sebald de Wert, a Dutch- lain, visited them, and called them the Sebald Islands, a name which they still bear on some of the Dutch maps. Captain Strong sailed through between the two principal islands in 1G90, and called the passage Falkland Sound, and from this the group afterwards took its English name. In 17G3 the islands were taken possession of by the French, who established a colony at Port Louis on Berkeley Sound; they were, however, expelled by the Spaniards in 17G7 or 17G8. In 17G1 Commodore Byron took possession on the part of England on the ground of prior discovery, and his doing so was nearly the cause of a war between England and Spain, both countries having armed fleets to contest the barren sovereignty. In 1771, however, Spain yielded the islands to Great Britain by convention. As they had not been actually colonized by England, the republic of Buenos Ayres claimed the group in 1820, and formed a settlement at Port Louis which promised to be fairly successful, but owing to some misunderstanding with the Americans it was destroyed by the latter in 1831. After all these vicissitudes the British flag was once more hoisted at Port Louis in 1833, and since that time the Falkland Islands have been a regular British colony under a governor, and the seat of a colonial bishopric. The population of the Falkland Islands is at present about 1250, by far the greater number being English and Scottish, with a few Buenos-Ayrean Gauchos. The number of children on the school-roll in 187G was 127. The exports now consist almost entirely of wool and tallow, with a few hides. The rearing of cattle is rapidly giving place to sheep-farming, which is found to pay better. There are now upwards of 200,000 sheep on the islands, and they yield heavy fleeces of wool of fine quality. In 187G the value of exports amounted to .37,121, of which wool sales account for 25,453. A process adopted a few years ago by the Falkland Island Company of boiling down the carcases of sheep for tallow is likely to prove successful, and to add another valuable export. The trade in sealskins, which was at one time of great value, is now almost at an end, and there is also a great falling off in the export of oil, the whales and seals which were at one time very numerous, particularly about West Falkland, having almost entirely left the coasts. The Falkland Islands correspond very nearly in latitude in the southern hemisphere with Middlesex in the northern, but the conditions of climate are singularly different. The temperature is very equable, the average of the two mid summer months being about 47 3 Fahr., and that of the two midwinter months 37 Fahr. The sky is almost constantly overcast, and rain falls, mostly in a drizzle and in frequent showers, on about 250 days in the year. The rainfall is not great, only about 20 inches, but the mean humidity for the year is 80, saturation being 100. Owing to the absence of sunshine and summer heat, and the constant fog and rain, wheat will not ripen, barley and oats can scarcely be said to do so, and the common English vegetables will not pro duce seed in the gardens. Still the inhabitants seem to get accustomed to their moist, chilly surroundings, and the colony is remarkably healthy. The Falkland Islands form essentially a part of Patagonia, with which they are connected by an elevated submarine plateau, and their flora is much the same as that of Antarctic South America. The trees which form dense forest and scrub in southern Patagonia and in Fuegia are absent, and one of the largest plants on the islands is a gigantic woolly ragweed (Senecio candicans] which attains in some places a height of three to four feet. A half-shrubby veronica (V. decussata) is found locally on the west island. The greater part of the &quot;camp&quot; is formed of peat, which in some places is of great age and depth, and at the bottom of the bed very dense and bituminous. The peat is different in its character from that of the north of Europe: cellular plants enter but little into its composition, and it is formed almost entirely of the roots and stems of Empetrum rubrum, a variety of the common crowberry of the Scottish hills with red berries, called by the Falklandcrs the &quot; diddle-dce &quot; berry; of Afyrtus nummiilaria, a little creeping myrtle whose leaves are used by the shepherds as a substitute for tea ; of Caltha append iculata, a dwarf species of marsh-marigold; and of some sedges and sedge-like plants, such as Astdia pumila, Gaimardia austral is, and Bostkovia grandiflora, There is an intention of establishing a work in Stanley for converting the psat into patent compressed fuel. Two vegetable productions of the Falklands, the &quot; balsam bog&quot; and the &quot;tussock grass,&quot; have been objects of curi osity and interest ever since the first accounts of the islands reached us. In many places the low grounds look at a little distance as if they were scattered over with large grey boulders, three or four to six or eight feet across. To heighten the illusion many of these blocks are covered with lichens, and bands of grass grow in soil collected in crevices, just as they would in little rifts in rocks. These boulder- like masses are single plants of Bolax glelaria, an umbelli ferous plant. The lumps of balsam-bog are quite hard and nearly smooth, and only when looked at closely are they seen to be covered with small hexagonal markings like the calices of a weathered piece of coral. These are the circlets of leaves and the leaf-buds terminating a multitude of stems which have gone on growing with extreme slowness and branching dichotomously for an unknown length of time, possibly for centuries, ever since the plant started as a single shoot from a seed. The growth is so slow, and the condensa tion from constant branching is so great, that the block becomes as hard as the boulder which it so much resembles, and it is difficult to cut a shaving from the surface with a sharp knife. Under the unfrequent condition of a warm day with the sun shining, a pleasant aromatic odour may be perceived where the plants abound, and a pale yellow astringent gum exudes from the surface, which is used by the shepherds as a vulnerary. The &quot; tussock grass,&quot; Dactyl is rcespitosa, is a wonderful and most valuable natural produc tion, which, owing to the introduction of stock into the islands, will probably ere long become extinct. It is a reed-like grass, which grows in dense tufts from six to ten feet high from stool-like root-crowns. The leaves and stems are most excellent fodder, and are extremely attract ive to cattle, but the lower parts of the stems and the crowns of the roots have a sweet nutty flavour which makes them irresistible, and cattle and pigs, and all creatures herbivorous and omnivorous, crop the tussocks to the ground, when the rain getting into the crowns rots the roots. The work of extermination has proceeded rapidly, and now the tussock grass is confined to patches in a narrow border round the shore and to some of the outlying islands. The laud fauna of the Falklands is very scanty. A large wolf-like fox, which seems to be indigenous, was common some years ago, but is now nearly exterminated. Some herds of cattle and horses run wild; but these were of course introduced, as were also the wild hogs, the nume rous rabbits, and the much less numerous hares. Land- birds are few in number, and are mostly strays from Fuegia. Sea-birds are very abundant, and, probably from the islands having been comparatively lately peopled, they are singularly tame. Several species of wild geese, some of them very good eating, fly about in large flocks, and are so fearless that the boys bring them down at will by en tangling their wings with a form of the &quot;bolas&quot; made with a pair of the knuckle-bones of an ox. The Falkland Islands consist entirely, so far as we know at present, of the older palaeozoic rocks, Lower Devonian or Upper Silurian, slightly metamorphosed and a good deal