frequently fall from these icy cliffs, and the crash reverberates like
the broadside of a man-of-war through the lonely channels. These
falls, as noticed in the last chapter, produce great waves which break
on the adjoining coasts. It is known that earthquakes frequently cause
masses of earth to fall from sea-cliffs: how terrific, then, would be
the effect of a severe shock (and such occur here [13]) on a body like
a glacier, already in motion, and traversed by fissures! I can readily
believe that the water would be fairly beaten back out of the deepest
channel, and then, returning with an overwhelming force, would whirl
about huge masses of rock like so much chaff. In Eyre's Sound, in the
latitude of Paris, there are immense glaciers, and yet the loftiest
neighbouring mountain is only 6200 feet high. In this Sound, about
fifty icebergs were seen at one time floating outwards, and one of them
must have been at least 168 feet in total height. Some of the icebergs
were loaded with blocks of no inconsiderable size, of granite and other
rocks, different from the clay-slate of the surrounding mountains. The
glacier furthest from the pole, surveyed during the voyages of the
Adventure and Beagle, is in lat. 46 degs. 50', in the Gulf of Penas. It
is 15 miles long, and in one part 7 broad and descends to the
sea-coast. But even a few miles northward of this glacier, in Laguna
de San
[picture]
Rafael, some Spanish missionaries [14] encountered "many icebergs, some
great, some small, and others middle-sized," in a narrow arm of the
sea, on the 22nd of the month corresponding with our June, and in a
latitude corresponding with that of the Lake of Geneva!
In Europe, the most southern glacier which comes down to the sea is met
with, according to Von Buch, on the coast of Norway, in lat. 67 degs.
Now, this is more than 20 degs. of latitude, or 1230 miles, nearer the
pole than the Laguna de San Rafael. The position of the glaciers at
this place and in the Gulf of Penas may be put even in a more striking
point of view, for they descend to the sea-coast within 7.5 degs. of
latitude, or 450 miles, of a harbour, where three species of Oliva, a
Voluta, and a Terebra, are the commonest shells, within less than 9
degs. from where palms grow, within 4.5 degs. of a region where the
jaguar and puma range over the plains, less than 2.5 degs. from
arborescent grasses, and (looking to the westward in the same
231