270 CLIMATIC COXDITIOXS OF THE GLACIAL EPOCH. 



Almost all that we do know of the glaciers of the Andes, north of Pata- 

 gonia, is the result of Mr. Whymper's remarkable explorations of the " Great 

 Andes of Ecuador " made during the season of 1879-80.* The snow line in 

 Ecuador appears to lie at about 16,000 feet ; for Corazon, which has an eleva- 

 tion only a hundred or two feet less than that, " hardly enters the snow line." 

 As there are several peaks or cones which rise to nearly 20,000 feet in eleva- 

 tion, and one which surpasses that altitude (Chimborazo, 20,577 feet, accord- 

 ing to Whymper; 20,703, Reiss and Stiibel), there is of course considerable 

 opportunity for the accumulation of ice or snow around the summits of these 

 great cones. Sometimes ice predominates ; at other times, snow. On Chim- 

 borazo "the ascent was mainly over snow, and entirely so after 19,000 feet 

 had been passed." On Cotopaxi, next in elevation to Chimborazo (19,550 

 feet, Whymper; 19,498, Reiss and Stiibel), " the whole of the ascent was made 

 over snow, with the exception of the final cone, which was a combination of 

 ash and ice." Of Antisana (19,200 feet, Whymper ; 18,885, Reiss and Stiibel) 

 it is said that " the western side is almost entirely covered by glacier," the 

 foot of which extends down to 15,295 feet. On lUinissa the foot of the 

 southernmost glacier is at 15,300 feet. Mr. Whymper thus sums up his obser- 

 vations in regard to the glaciers in question: "In general features they pre- 

 sent no points of startling diflference from the glaciers of Europe. Although 

 on several of the mountains which have been named the glacier-covered area 

 is comj^arable to the amount on Mont Blanc, the Equatorial glaciers never 

 descend to so low an elevation as one would expect from glaciers flowing out 

 of such extensive reservoirs. I know of no instance of an Ecuadorian glacier 

 descending so low as 12,000 feet, and they generally terminate between 

 14,000 and 15,000 feet. Moraines are scarce upon them, for the reason that 

 few rocks rise above them, and the evidences which moraines frequently 

 afford of former greater extensions of glaciers is consequently wanting. 

 Jiochcs moidonne.es are rare, more perhaps on account of the ease with which 

 most of the rocks disintegrate than from any other cause. On the south 



as a curious fact, illustrative of the very modern introiluction of ice into geology, tliat neither the word glacier, 

 nor its equivalent in any language, is to be found in Buschmann's extraordinarily copious index to the Kosnios 

 of Huniliohit. Even in the very recently published article ou Ecuador in the Encyelopffidia Britanuica, the 

 crater of Altar is said to be "remarkable as the bed of the only real glacier known to exist in the Ecuadorian 

 Andes." 



* Of these most arduous and successful explorations hardly anything more than a brief synopsis has as yet 

 been published. See Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, New Series, Vol. III. p. 449, and the 

 xVlpine Journal, Vol. X. pp. 49-56, 113-122, 185-194, 241-251, 369-377, 425-452, under the title of "Expedi- 

 tions among the Great Amies of Ecuador." 



