1834.] 



FLOATING ICEBERGS. 



235 



inconsiderable size, of granite and other rocks, different from the 

 clay-slate of the surrounding mountains. The glacier furthest 



00' 



from the pole, surveyed during the voyages of the Adventure and 

 Beagle, is in lat. 46 50', in the Gulf of Penas. It is 15 miles long, 

 and in one part 7 broad, and descends to the sea-coast. Btit even 

 a few miles northward of this glacier, in the Laguna de San Rafael, 

 some Spanish missionaries * encountered " many icebergs, some 

 great, some small, and others middle-sized," in a narrow arm of the 

 sea, on the 22nd of the month corresponding with our June, and in 

 a latitude corresponding with that of the Lake of Geneva ! 



In Europe, the most southern glacier which comes down to the 

 sea is met with, according to Von Buch, on the coast of Norway, in 

 lat. 67. Now, this is more than 20 of latitude, or 1230 miles, 

 nearer the pole than the Laguna de San Eafael. The position of 

 the glaciers at this place and in the Gulf of Penas may be put 

 even in a more striking point of view, for they descend to the sea- 

 coast within 7J of latitude, or 450 miles, of a harbour, where 

 three species of Oliva, a Voluta, and a Terebra, are the commonest 

 shells, within less than 9 from where palms grow, within 4 of a 

 region where the jaguar and puma range over the plains, less than 

 2-i from arborescent grasses, and (looking to the westward in the 

 * Ajriieros. Dose. Hist. <lc Cln'lor, p. 227. 



