INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS DURING THE YEAR 1872. xxxix 



Marsh, Professor Cope, and Dr. Leidy in the Rocky Mount- 

 ains in the way of fossil forms of mammals, reptiles, and birds, 

 which will be referred to hereafter. 



Important additions to our knowledge of the Bermudas 

 and the West Indies are also indicated, especially in refer- 

 ence to very remarkable changes of level within a compara- 

 tively recent period. The evidence of a continued change 

 of level in various parts of the earth's surface has been multi- 

 plied during the year, the facts observed relating to Spitz- 

 bergen, Greenland, Sweden, Patagonia, and the Andes. Pro- 

 fessor Agassiz himself, when in the Straits of Magellan, found 

 shells living in brackish ponds elevated some 50 or 100 feet 

 above the level of the sea, precisely identical with species 

 having living representatives in the waters below them. 

 The interval of time has been so short since the occurrence 

 which caused the elevation took place, as not to involve the 

 dying out of the animals thus cut off from the ocean by the 

 upheaval. 



To Professor Agassiz we also owe the announcement of 

 important indications in reference to the glacial condition 

 of South America, especially in the vicinity of Montevideo 

 and Chile. Striking glacial phenomena, too, have been brought 

 to light in regard to Algeria and elsewhere in the Old World. 

 The discovery of glaciers by Mr. Clarence King and others 

 in the high mountains of Washington Territory, Oregon, and 

 Northern California w T as announced during the year 1871 ; 

 and they have also been detected, in 1872, by Mr.Muir in the 

 Merced Mountains, not far from the Yosemite region. 



The announcements of discoveries in the field of Geography, 

 as us\ial, are quite full, as compared with many other branch- 

 es of science, numerous explorations, both by sea and land, 

 prosecuted by nearly all the civilized nations of Europe and 

 America, having been prosecuted, with scarcely any intermis- 

 sion, from the beginning of the year to its end. We have 

 nothing, so far, from the expedition of Captain Hall, which 

 left the United States in 1871 for the North Pole, by way 

 of Greenland and Smith's Sound. This, however, is not a 

 subject of particular solicitude, as, except by very good for- 

 tune, the first news was not to be expected till the summer 

 of 1873. The proposed expedition of Mr. Octave Pave to- 

 ward the North Pole appears not to have been actually un- 



