AMERICAN GEOLOGISTS AND NATURALISTS. 49 



deep, four and a quarter feet wide at the top, and two feet at the 

 bottom. These pot-holes could not be referred to the action of 

 any existing current of water, as they are on the water-shed line, 

 between the two rivers, and more than one thousand feet above 

 the sea level. 



Mr. John H. Blake was requested to prepare a paper on the 

 tertiary and drift of the Andes. 



Prof H. D. Rogers remarked, in relation to stranded icebergs, 

 that coming from the north, loaded with bowlders, and stranded 

 far above the sea level, they would, while melting, produce all 

 the phenomena of the glaciers of the Alps. 



Mr. CouTHOUY was requested to di-aw up a paper, embracing 

 the facts which he had collected in regard to icebergs, and lay 

 it before the Association. Mr. C. having, in accordance with this 

 request, prepared the following summary of his observations and 

 the remarks he had made concerning them, at the present ses- 

 sion, it is here inserted. 



Mr. C. premised that in order to give the remarks he was about to 

 submit, their full weight, it might be proper for him to state, that he 

 had no preconceived opinion — no hypothesis of his own upon this 

 question, to sustain. His intention was simply to offer a few facts 

 which had fallen under his personal observation, with the inferences 

 to which they had led his own mind, leaving abler judges to decide 

 upon the value of such facts and the correctness of the inferences. 

 He remarked that the opportunity of witnessing the actual operation 

 of the huge bodies of drifting ice, known as bergs or islands, was of 

 so rare occurrence that its true character appeared to him not clearly 

 understood, and consequently, geologists were liable to overlook or 

 err in judgment upon some important points in the dynamics of 

 aqueo-glacial agency. Mr. C. then proceeded to a statement of the 

 geographical position of a number of icebergs, as determined by re- 

 ference to his journals. The first noted was observed on the 28th 

 of May, 1822, during a passage from Havanna to Rotterdam, and 

 was in 42° 10' N. lat., 44° 50' W. from Greenwich. Its size must 

 have been very considerable, as it was visible from the deck of a 

 vessel of two hundred tons, for eighteen miles. Numerous small 

 streams of water were pouring down its sides, and a boat was sent 

 with a view to obtain a supply, but on approaching it, the swell, not- 

 withstanding its being quite calm, was found to dash against its face 

 with such force, and the lower portions were so worn and ragged, as 

 to render it inaccessible. Although the weather was so serene, and 

 the sea so tranquil, yet the berg was constantly turning slowly 

 round as the swell struck its many promontoriform projections. It 

 appeared to have lost little of its primal magnitude, the summits re- 

 taining a conical or rounded form, instead of being worn, like others 



