216 THE OCEAN. [Book IX. 



actual configuration of land and water on the surface 

 of the earth presents a striking resemblance with 

 that which would naturally result from the action of 

 the forces just described. 



The clear records of glacier action on an enor- 

 mous scale traced by Professor Agassiz over all parts 

 of Brazil which he visited give support to the idea of 

 the last change of the earth's axis being as above 

 suggested.^ And it is also interesting to observe 

 that the only part of the present continents which, 

 notwithstanding that change of axis, would have 

 preserved its position relatively with both the poles 

 and the equator, and would in those former times, as 

 well as in the present, have enjoyed a temperate 

 climate, is the very spot which the accepted traditions 

 of the Caucasian race record as being that where our 

 ancestors escaped destruction during such a deluge 



1 The striations and apparent remnants of glacier moraines 

 on the Tijuca Hills and the Organ Moiintains near Eio de 

 Janeiro, which, at the time I published The Elements, and for 

 eight or nine years previously, I supposed to be traces of glacier 

 action similar to what I had seen among the glaciers of Norway 

 and Switzerland, I afterwards found to be effects of the sliding of 

 a stratum of broken rock over the solid rock of which the moun- 

 tains are formed. A stratum of very hard and brittle rock seems 

 to have been shivered to fragments, and, the parts adjacent to 

 each crack having decomposed, the whole mass has taken a 

 downward motion over the mountain sides, not only causing 

 striations exactly similar to those caused by glacier action, but 

 also leaving moraines which, though in general appearance 

 similar to glacier moraines, are formed in consequence of the 

 portion of the same stratum, which formerly surrounded them, 

 having moved away more rapidly on steeper declivities. This of 



