In the more level parts of the country, the surface of the peat is broken up into little pools of water, which stand at different heights, and appear as if artificially excavated.

Small streams of water, flowing underground, complete the disorganisation of the vegetable matter, and consolidate the whole.
The climate of the southern part of America appears particularly favourable to the production of peat.

In the Falkland Islands almost every kind of plant, even the coarse grass which covers the whole surface of the land, becomes converted into this substance: scarcely any situation checks its growth; some of the beds are as much as twelve feet thick, and the lower part becomes so solid when dry, that it will hardly burn.

Although every plant lends its aid, yet in most parts the Astelia is the most efficient.

It is rather a singular circumstance, as being so very different from what occurs in Europe, that I nowhere saw moss forming by its decay any portion of the peat in South America.