OSCILLATIONS WITH GLACIATION IX OTHER COTJXTEIES. 509 



after the coutiueutal ice-sheet was removed, for DaAvsou, as before cited, 

 finds that this region since then has stood higher than now, allowing forests 

 to grow on shores which have very recently become again submerged, as 

 on the eastern side of the continent. During the past hundred years, too, 

 a considerable subsidence has taken place, according to Dall, at a locality 

 known as Sinking Point, in Chalmers Bay, Prince William Sound, on the 

 south coast of Alaska; but all of that country west of the one huncbed and 

 fiftieth meridian, to Bering Strait and the adjacent Siberian coast, is stated 

 by this author to be now rising at a somewhat rapid rate. Barnacles are 

 found on St. Michael's Island, Norton Sound, at least 15 feet above high 

 tide, and driftwood at many localities on Norton Bay and Sound is "piled 

 in winrows * * * far above the level which the most severe stoiTas 

 and the highest tides now attain, * * * much decayed, but still 

 preserving its shape." ^ 



OSCILLATIONS ASSOCIATED WITH GLACIATION IN OTHER COUNTRIES. 



Two Other areas of great extent, namely, Patagonia and northwestern 

 Europe, have been covered by ice-sheets which have disappeared; and a 

 brief consideration of their oscdlations attending the ice accumulation and 

 following its departure will be useful in this discussion of the causes of the 

 Pleistocene eaith movements of the basin of Lake Agassiz and of the North 

 American glaciated area. 



The many intricate and deep fjords, channels, and sounds on the coast 

 of Patagonia, southern Cliile, Tien-a del Fuego, and the Falkland Islands, 

 prove that this part of the earth's crust has lately stood for a considerable 

 time at a much higher level than now. This stage of elevation was fol- 

 lowed by the envelopment of the southern extremity of the continent by 

 an ice-sheet, which, according to the observations of Darwin and Agassiz, 

 spread its diift northward to latitude 42°, while local glaciers extended 

 fai-ther north. ^^Tien the ice melted away, the land was depressed lower 

 than now, and since then a reelevation has been in progi'ess. Darwin states 

 that "the land £i-om the Rio Plata to Tierra del Fuego, a distance of 1,200 

 miles, has been raised in mass (and in Patagonia to a height of between 300 



' Alaaka and its Resources, 1870, pp. 465, 466. 



