But Even A
Few Miles Northward Of This Glacier, In Laguna De San
[Picture]
Rafael, some Spanish missionaries [14] encountered "many
icebergs, some great, some small, and others middle-sized," in
a narrow arm of the sea, on the 22nd of the month corresponding
with our June, and in a latitude corresponding with
that of the Lake of Geneva!
In Europe, the most southern glacier which comes down
to the sea is met with, according to Von Buch, on the coast
of Norway, in lat. 67 degs. Now, this is more than 20 degs. of
latitude, or 1230 miles, nearer the pole than the Laguna de San
Rafael. The position of the glaciers at this place and in the
Gulf of Penas may be put even in a more striking point of
view, for they descend to the sea-coast within 7.5 degs. of
latitude, or 450 miles, of a harbour, where three species of
Oliva, a Voluta, and a Terebra, are the commonest shells,
within less than 9 degs. from where palms grow, within 4.5 degs.
of a region where the jaguar and puma range over the
plains, less than 2.5 degs. from arborescent grasses, and
(looking to the westward in the same hemisphere) less than
2 degs. from orchideous parasites, and within a single degree
of tree-ferns!
These facts are of high geological interest with respect to
the climate of the northern hemisphere at the period when
boulders were transported. I will not here detail how simply
the theory of icebergs being charged with fragments of rock,
explain the origin and position of the gigantic boulders of
eastern Tierra del Fuego, on the high plain of Santa Cruz,
and on the island of Chiloe. In Tierra del Fuego, the greater
number of boulders lie on the lines of old sea-channels, now
converted into dry valleys by the elevation of the land. They
are associated with a great unstratified formation of mud
and sand, containing rounded and angular fragments of all
sizes, which has originated [15] in the repeated ploughing up of
the sea-bottom by the stranding of icebergs, and by the matter
transported on them. Few geologists now doubt that
those erratic boulders which lie near lofty mountains have
been pushed forward by the glaciers themselves, and that
those distant from mountains, and embedded in subaqueous
deposits, have been conveyed thither either on icebergs or
frozen in coast-ice. The connection between the transportal
of boulders and the presence of ice in some form, is strikingly
shown by their geographical distribution over the earth.
In South America they are not found further than 48 degs. of
latitude, measured from the southern pole; in North America
it appears that the limit of their transportal extends to
53.5 degs. from the northern pole; but in Europe to not more
than 40 degs. of latitude, measured from the same point. On the
other hand, in the intertropical parts of America, Asia, and
Africa, they have never been observed; nor at the Cape of Good
Hope, nor in Australia.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 197 of 402
Words from 101360 to 101873
of 208183