516 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



feet in depth, a few feet of the surface being thawed in sum- 

 mer and supporting a peculiar vegetation. In such countries 

 the ice age has naturally left no record. 



In the Southern Hemisphere the only existing land-surfaces 

 which probably could have been affected by an ice age are 

 Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia at the south extremity of 

 South America, New Zealand and Tasmania, and in some 

 slight degree South Australia. Of the former countries we 

 have no sufficient exploration to give complete geological data 

 on which to reason as to the extent of glaciation they may 

 have undergone in the past ; but Darwin found erratic boulders 

 in lat. 41° to 43° on Chiloe Island, evidently brought by glaciers 

 from the Cordilleras, and on the east coast he found similar 

 boulders in Santa Cruz valley, lat. 50°, but he did not examine 

 the country farther north. At present we have the remark- 

 able fact that the mountains on the west coast of South 

 America, as far north as the Gulf of Penas, lat. 46° 52', send 

 large glaciers down to the sea-coast, where icebergs are formed, 

 and this although the mountains there do not exceed 6,000ft. 

 in height. The degree of cold experienced so far north on this 

 coast is, however, explained by the existence of a cold antarctic 

 current, which, starting apparently to the ease of the project- 

 ing antarctic land called South Victoria, circles round to the 

 north and east until it strikes the west coast of Patagonia in 

 lat. 48°, where it divides, part going up the coast northwards 

 until it merges in the west-flowing equatorial current, part 

 flowing south and sweeping round Cape Horn, and continuing 

 onwards in a north-easterly direction into the South Atlantic. 

 This cold antarctic current performs for the south-west of 

 South America a similar but opposite office to that which the 

 warm Gulf Stream performs for the north-west of Europe, 

 and, just as the Gulf Stream gives north-western Europe an 

 abnormally high temperature, so this antarctic cold stream 

 gives an abnormally low temperature to the south-western 

 coast of South America. The south-east coast has a much 

 more genial climate. And here I would protest against the 

 statement so often made that the Southern Hemisphere is 

 colder than the Northern Hemisphere. Darwin probably gave 

 rise to the idea by comparing south-west South America with 

 north-western Europe, which is warmed by the Gulf Stream. 

 North-eastern North America almost exactly corresponds in 

 climate with south-western South America. Newfoundland, 

 in the same north latitude as Penas has south latitude, has a 

 very similar climate, being also chilled by an arctic current, 

 although it has no high mountains as nurseries for glaciers. 

 Comparison is, however, very difficult on account of the very 

 different distribution of land and water in the two hemispheres. 

 If we take the corresponding north and south latitudes of 42°, 



