1 10 TJie American Geologist. August, i899 
It was long held and is probably now held by the great ma- 
jority of geologists, that as glacial retreat in the northern hem- 
isphere has been toward the pole, glacial deposition was from 
that direction, and that glacier ice has never invaded latitudes 
as near the equator as 37" ; yet Dr. Geikie cites glacial action 
at sea level at Gibraltar,* and Agassiz cites corresponding ac- 
tion at }^y° S. f and a number of observers cite evidences of ice 
action adjacent to or within the tropics. J 
The facts establishing the comparatively recent glaciation 
of both cold temperate and warm temperate latitudes were re- 
fused credence and ridiculed in but recent years; it is there- 
fore to be expected that the more modified and fainter evi- 
dences within the tropics should be strongly wrangled over; 
it is well that they should be. 
Upon Mt. Kenia in 1° S.§ and in other equatorial African 
mountains and peaks, and in the Equadorian Andes! the 
shrunken remnants of vast glaciers yet rest; just below these 
tropical glaciers are evidences of recent retreat, and still further 
the evidences fade gradually into the tropical growths of the 
plains at the bases of these mountains. 
Tropical Glaciation. 
The controversies between geologists regarding glacial ex- 
tent during the Ice age have thus shifted in the past few dec- 
ades from temperate to tropical areas. 
There are admitted difficulties in tracing and differentiating 
*The Great Ice Age , 3rd Edit. 1894-95, P- 598. 
fA Journey in Brazil, page 427, note. 
i:Hartt, Physical Geography & Geology of Brazil; Belt, The Natu- 
ralist in Nicaragua; De La Beche, Trans. Geol. Soc. London, Vol. 2, 
Second Series, pp. 182-186; Blanford, Quart. Journal Geol. Soc, Lon- 
don, Vol. X, 1841, pp. 159-267. 
Chardin, Travels in Persia, (Pinkerton's) Vol. IX, p. 178; Crawford 
Am. Geologist, Vol. 8, Nov. 1891, No. 5, pp. 306-314. On the Coast of 
China around Amoy in Lat. 24° N. evidences of glacial action are full 
and complete. 
U. S. Special Consular Reports, Streets and Highways. 
Dep't of State 1891, pp. 520-525. 
Nicaragua, Report U. S. Commission (Ludlow), page 15. 
§G. F. ScoU-Elliott. Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, Vol. LL No. 204. 
pp. 675-6. 
llWhymper. Travels among the great Andes of the Equator, p. 62, 
note I. 
