GLACIERS IN OTHER PARTS OF THE WORLD. 109 



issa are the glaciers comparable to those on Mont Blanc. 

 In Chili, in the province of Colchagna, about latitude 35°, 

 glaciers begin to appear, descending somewhat below the 

 6,000-foot level. " Proceeding southward from Colchagua, we 

 pass into a region in which the climatic conditions are very 

 different from those prevailing in the country farther north. 

 The ranges border the sea very closely, the amount of pre- 

 cipitation increasing and becoming more generally distributed 

 throughout the year. The temperature, at the same time di- 

 minishes, and all the conditions favorable to the formation of 

 glaciers are found to prevail. In consequence of this, there is 

 an extensive display of snow and ice along the southern coast 

 of Chili, and especially at the very extremity of the conti- 

 nent." 



"In Tierra del Fuego," writes Mr. Darwin, "the snow- 

 line descends very low, and the mountain sides are abrupt ; 

 therefore we might expect to find glaciers extending far 

 down their Hanks. Nevertheless, when on first beholding, in 

 the middle of summer, many of the creeks on the northern 

 side of the Beagle channel terminated by bold precipices of 

 ice overhanging the salt water, I felt greatly astonished ; for 

 the mountains from which they descended were far from 

 being very lofty." * 



Darwin's observations upon the glaciers of South America 

 are still standard, and are worthy of fuller reproduction. In 

 his " Voyage of the Beagle " he says : 



The descent of glaciers to the sea must, I conceive, mainly 

 depend (subject, of course, to a proper supply of snow in the 

 upper region) on the lowness of the line of perpetual snow on 

 steep mountains near the coast. As the snow-line is so low in 

 Tierra del Fuego, we might have expected that many of the 

 glaciers would have reached the sea. Nevertheless, I was as- 

 tonished when I first saw a range, only from 3,000 to 4,000 

 feet in height, in the latitude of Cumberland, with every val- 

 ley filled with streams of ice descending to the sea-coast. 



* Whitney's " Climatic Changes," pp. 272, 273, 



