THE 



JOURNAL OF GEOLOGY 



NOVEMBER-DECEMBER, 1893. 



THE SUPPOSED GLACIATION OF BRAZIL. 1 



The inquiries I have received from time to time regarding 

 the supposed glaciation of Brazil in Pleistocene times, the doubts 

 sometimes expressed regarding it, and the occasional appeals 

 made to it, 2 induce me to state briefly what I know about the 

 matter. 



Strangely enough the errors of Agassiz, Hartt and Belt regard- 

 ing glaciation in Brazil have been turned to account both by those 

 who have theories that need the support they think the glacia- 

 tion of Brazil would give them, and also by those who seek by 

 means of these errors to throw discredit on the subject of glacial 

 geology. 



I believe the case has been generally dropped by geologists 

 as not proven, but I am confident that no one wishes to ignore 

 the evidence "merely because it runs counter to all his precon- 

 ceived opinions." 3 



EARLY VIEWS OF AGASSIZ AND HARTT. 



When Professor Louis Agassiz made his trip to Brazil in 

 1865, on board the steamer going out he gave a series of 



1 Advance quotations are made from this article by Dr. Alfred R. Wallace in 

 Nature, Vol. 48, No. 1251, Oct. 19, 1893, 589-590. 



- The Glacial Nightmare and the Flood, by Sir Henry H. Howorth, London, 

 1893. Marsden Manson, in the Trans, of the Geol. Soc. of Australasia, I., pt. VI., 

 155-170, and in the Trans, of the Tech. Soc. of the Pacific Coast, VIII., No. 2, 19. 

 Geological and Solar Climates ; their Causes and Variations, by Marsden Manson, 

 University of California, May, 1893. Ragnarok, by Ignatius Donelly. 



3 Wallace: Nature, Vol. II., 1880, 511. 

 Vol. I., No. 8. 753 



