Ag?eros "Desc. Hist. de Chilo?"
page 227.)
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
latitude 67 degrees. Now, this is more than 20 degrees 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 1/2 degrees 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 degrees from where palms
grow, within 4 1/2 degrees of a region where the jaguar and puma
range over the plains, less than 2 1/2 degrees from arborescent
grasses, and (looking to the westward in the same hemisphere) less
than 2 degrees 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 explains 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.
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