of green. Even where this was brightest, “it was scarcely sufh- cient to remind one of the fresh turf and budding flowers of the spring of other countries.”’ At Vallenar, a ‘green valley" bor- dered by ‘naked hills,"’ he learned that a shower had not fallen for thirteen months. ‘“The inhabitants heard with the greatest envy of the rain at Coquimbo; from the appearance of the sky they had hopes of equally good fortune, which, a fortnight afterwards, were realized. I was at Copiapé at the time; and there the people, with equal envy, talked of the abundant rain at Guasco. After two or three very dry years, perhaps with not more than one shower during the whole time, a rainy year generally follows; and this docs more harm than even the drought. The rivers swell, and cover with gravel and sand the narrow strips of ground, which alone are fit for cultivation. The floods also injure the irrigating ditches. Great devasta- tion had thus been caused three years ago.”[1]
It is the greater frequency of rain that gives the hills of the Coast Range the moisture necessary for this vegetation (scant as it is) as we go southward from Antofagasta. These showers may seem of small consequence to us who live in a happier climate, but they are of immense concern to those who live on the edge of the habitable lands where the margin of safety is small or vanishes altogether.
Fog and Cloud on the Coast
To the traveler on the desert coast of Chile and Peru it ts a source of constant surprise that the sky is so often overcast and the ports hidden by fog, while on every hand there are clear evidences of extreme aridity. The big desert tracts lie east of the Coast Range, and there, except for slight summer cloudi- ness, cloudless skies are the rule. The desert of the littoral is in many parts only a narrow fringe of dry marine terraces quite unlike the real desert beyond in type of weather and in re- sources. ‘The fog bank overhanging it forms over the Hum- boldt Current and the upwelling cold water between the cur- rent and the shore, drifts landward with the onshore wind,
- ↑ Ibid. pp. 348-349.
