PALEOLITHIC RACES 333 



themselves could scarcely remain unaffected, and we might 

 expect to find some signs of a colder climate even in the torrid 

 zone. Though these signs are to be sought in regions which are 

 difficult of access and rarely visited by skilled observers, yet 

 an increasing body of evidence shows that they actually exist. 

 In South America " traces left by the Ice age extend along the 

 whole mountain chain from Cape Horn (lat. 56 S.) up to the 

 Sierra Nevada de Santa Maria (lat. ii° N.). 1 On Mount Tacora 

 (lat. 17 30' S.), the summit of which just reaches the snow-line 

 (19,965 ft.), terminal moraines have been traced down to a level 

 of 13,779 ft., i.e. 6,186 ft. below the existing snow-line; Mount 

 Tunari, situated in the more richly watered East Cordillera at 

 about the same latitude (17 10'), reaches the snow-line at about 

 17,000 ft., and its ancient terminal moraines extend down to 

 9,842 ft., or 8,210 ft. below the snow-line. 



The Himalaya and Karakorum, situated it is true outside the 

 tropics, afford concordant testimony ; thus in the latest account 

 of these regions we are informed that the existing glaciers, 

 though large and numerous, are but the relics of an older' series 

 of ice-flows. The ancient moraines, the perched blocks, and 

 the glaciated surfaces all furnish proofs that the ice in former 

 times covered an area in Asia immensely larger than at present. 



On the southern slopes of the Dhauladhar range an old 

 moraine was discovered by the late General MacMahon at the 

 extraordinarily low altitude of 4,700 ft. ; and on the Tibetan side 

 of the great Himalayan range the glaciation appears at one time 

 to have been almost universal. No trustworthy observations 

 have yet been made in Central or Northern Tibet ; but in Ladak, 

 in Nari Khorsam and in Tsang the vast moraines and the trans- 

 ported blocks, perched high on hillsides far from their parent 

 mass, are indications of the former existence in Southern Tibet 

 of an almost continuous ice-sheet, and of snow-fields and 

 glaciers such as are now to be found in polar regions only. 2 



The best register however of a former glacial climate within 

 the tropics is afforded by the solitary Mount Kenya (19,500 ft.), 

 which rises only half a degree south of the equator. The glaciers 

 which now flow down its slopes terminate at a height of about 

 15,400 ft., but the ancient ice extended at least 5,400 ft. lower 



1 Steinmann, op. cit. 



2 Burrard and Hayden, A Sketch of the Geography and Geology of the Himalaya 

 Mountains and Tibet, 1907, part iii. p. 192. 



