EASTERN ANDES: CORDILLERA VILCAPAMPA 205 



These features are surprising because neither Whymper x nor 

 Wolf 2 mentions the former greater extent of the ice on the vol- 

 canoes of Ecuador, only ten or twelve degrees farther north. 

 Moreover, Eeiss 3 denies that the hypothesis of universal climatic 

 change is supported by the facts of a limited glaciation in the 

 High Andes of Ecuador ; and J. W. Gregory 4 completely overlooks 

 published proof of the existence of former more extensive glaciers 

 elsewhere in the Andes : 



"... the absence not only of any traces of former more ex- 

 tensive glaciation from the tropics, as in the Andes and Kiliman- 

 djaro, but also from the Cape." He says further: "In spite of 

 the extensive glaciers now in existence on the higher peaks of the 

 Andes, there is practically no evidence of their former greater 

 extension." ( !) 



Whymper spent most of his time in exploring recent volcanoes 

 or those recently in eruption, hence did not have the most favora- 

 ble opportunities for gathering significant data. Eeiss was car- 

 ried off his feet by the attractiveness of the hypothesis 5 relating 

 to the effect of glacial denudation on the elevation of the snowline. 

 Gregory appeared not to have recognized the work of Hettner on 

 the Cordillera of Bogota and of Sievers 6 and Acosta on the Sierra 

 Nevada de Santa Marta in northern Colombia. 



The importance of the glacial features of the Cordillera Vilca- 

 pampa developed on a great scale in very low latitudes in the 

 southern hemisphere is twofold : first, it bears on the still unset- 

 tled problem of the universality of a colder climate in the Pleis- 

 tocene, and, second, it supplies additional data on the relative de- 

 pression of the snowline in glacial times in the tropics. Snow- 



1 Travels Amongst the Great Andes of the Equator, 1S92. 



* Geografia y Geologia del Ecuador, 1892. 



8 Das Hochgebirge der Republik Ecuador, Vol. 2, 2 Ost-Cordillera, 1902, p. 162. 



* Contributions to the Geology of British East Africa; Pt. 1, The Glacial Geology 

 of Mount Kenia, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, Vol. 50, 1894, p. 523. 



5 See especially A. Penck (Penck and Bruckner), Die Alpen im Eiszeitalter, 1909, 

 Vol. 1, p. 6, and I. C. Russell, Glaciers of Mount Rainier, 18th Ann. Rep't, U. S. Geol. 

 Surv., 1896-97, Sect. 2, pp. 384-385. 



8 Die Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta und die Sierra de Perija, Zeitschrift der 

 Gesellschaft fur Erdkunde zu Berlin, Vol. 23, 1888, pp. 1-158. 



