Price.] ^^ [Miirch 3, .7, & 



ftolstice will coincitk' with the Eartli's greatest distance from the Sun; 13); 

 lience, greater refrigeration ; and hence, according to Ja&. Croll, a great 

 ice cap at the North Pole ; to be yet more aggravated when such coinci- 

 dence shall occur at the greatest eccentricity of the Earth's orbit. It is not 

 asserted that in any one year the Earth will receive any less heat from the 

 Sun, or in either hemisphere than in the normal state of the Earth's move- 

 ments. If the aphelion winter be colder, the perihelion summer would be 

 warmer in the same hemisphere. At the present time the.se both occur in 

 the soul hern hemisphere, and we hear of no abnormal cold, or increase of 

 ice. Certainly South America is not invaded by ice, and our ships are going 

 i-ound Cape Horn as usual. It is not known that the glaciers on the Andes 

 have grown higher or longer; while it is known that by the rise of Norway 

 of l)ut three feet in a century, the mountain glaciers have grown longer by 

 about three hundred yards. The good people there need not be in a hurry 

 to emigrate, for in due time the vertical oscillation will be in an opposite 

 direction. 



Agassiz says, in his Journey in Brazil, in proof of his opinion, "On my 

 arrival in Rio de Janeiro, * * * my attention was immediately attracted by 

 a very peculiar formation consisting of an ochraceous, highly ferruginous, 

 sandy clay. During a stay of three months at Rio, whence I made my 

 excursions into the neighboring country, I had opjiortunities of studying 

 this deposit, both in the province of Rio de Janein) and in the adjoining 

 province of Minas Geraes. I found that it rested everywhere upon the un- 

 dulating surfaces of the solid rocks in place, was almost entiitdy destitute 

 of stratitic-iition, and contained a variety of pebbles and boulders." p. 299. 

 "There can be no doubt in the mind of any one familiar with similar facts 

 observed in other parts of the world, that this is one of the many forms of 

 drift connected with glacial action. I was, however, far from anticipating, 

 when 1 first met it in the neighborhood of Rio, that I should afterwards 

 find it spreading over the surface of the country from north to south and 

 from east to west, with a continuity which gives legible connection to the 

 whole geological history of the continent." p. 400. "A sheet of drift, 

 consisting of the same homogenous, unstratified paste, and containing 

 loose materials of all sorts and sizes, covers the country." p. 403. Up 

 the coast at Para, he says, " I was surprised to find at every step of my 

 progress the same geological phenomena which had met me at Rio," and 

 he was reliably informed " tliat this formation continued through the whole 

 valley of the Amazons, and was also to be found on all the affluents." p. 

 405. Now Rio is at the 24th degree of south latitude. Para at one degree, 

 and the Amazon discharges under the equator. Did then the polar ice 

 csiuse the plienomenon '(I If so, was it by a mighty continuous land-borne 

 glacier from the South Pole, or by ices from the Andes, glacial or floating? 

 He gives no explanation here, but elsewhere regards the Andes as sources 

 of the glaciation. He saw the unstratified paste "spivading over the sur- 

 face of the (!ountry." Other geologists, in other parts of the world, find its 

 supposed equivalent, the " boulder clay or till," at the bottom of the drift 



