Channel Beagle

See also: Beagle (homonymy)

The channel Beagle (also called Channel of Beagle or Channel of the Beagle ) is a geographical accident extreme south of the American continent, which is located between the meridian lines 68º36' 38,5W and 66º25' 00W. Its oriental party constitutes the international limit between the Chile and the Argentine, but its Western part is in Chile. It is about a Détroit separating from the islands from the Archipel from the Ground from Fire, in the extreme south of the South America. It separates the Isla Grande from Tierra del Fuego several small islands in the south.

The Beagle channel is approximately 240 km long and its minimal width is of approximately 5 km. To the west, it is connected to the Pacifique by the Canal of Darwin. Although it is navigable by large ships, there exist other surer roads in the south (Passage of Drake) and in north (Magellan Strait). Some small islands close to its Eastern end were a long time the object of a territorial argument between Chile and Argentina. According to the treaty of 1985, signed between the two countries after the arbitration of the pope Jean-Paul II, they make from now on left Chile (Lennox, Picton and Nueva)

The principal places of dwelling on banks of the channel are Puerto Williams (Chile) and Ushuaia (Argentine).

The channel owes its name with the British ship HMS '' Beagle '' which took part in two hydrographic missions on the southernmost coasts of South America at the beginning of the 19th century. During the first, under the direction of the Australian commander Philip Parker King, the captain of the Beagle , Pringle Stokes, committed suicide and was replaced by the captain Robert FitzRoy. The second, often called the Voyage of the Beagle , is famous because the FitzRoy captain took along on board Charles Darwin, thus giving him opportunity of proving reliable as a Naturaliste amateur.

See too

Conflict of the Beagle
Lennox, Picton and Nueva

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