nd, tell the same story. If one account
which has been published can be trusted, we have direct evidence of
glacial action in the south-eastern corner of Australia.

Looking to America; in the northern half, ice-borne fragments of rock
have been observed on the eastern side as far south as lat. 36 deg-37
deg, and on the shores of the Pacific, where the climate is now so
different, as far south as lat. 46 deg; erratic boulders have, also,
been noticed on the Rocky Mountains. In the Cordillera of Equatorial
South America, glaciers once extended far below their present level.
In central Chile I was astonished at the structure of a vast mound of
detritus, about 800 feet in height, crossing a valley of the Andes; and
this I now feel convinced was a gigantic moraine, left far below any
existing glacier. Further south on both sides of the continent, from
lat. 41 deg to the southernmost extremity, we have the clearest evidence
of former glacial action, in huge boulders transported far from their
parent source.

We do not know that the Glacial epoch was strictly simultaneous at these
several far distant points on opposite sides of the world. But we have
good evidence in almost every case, that the epoch was included within
the latest geological period. We have, also, excellent evidence, that it
endured for an enormous time, as measured by years, at each point. The
cold may have come on, or have ceased, earlier at one point of the globe
than at another, but seeing that it endured for long at each, and that
it was contemporaneous in a geological sense, it seems to me probable
that it was, during a part at least of the period, actually simultaneous
throughout the world. Without some distinct evidence to the contrary, we
may at least admit as probable that the glacial action was simultaneous
on the eastern and western sides of North America, in the Cordillera
under the equator and under the warmer temperate zones, and on both
sides of the southern extremity of the continent. If this be admitted,
it is difficult to avoid believing that the temperature of the whole
world was at this period simultaneously cooler. But it would suffice for
my purpose, if the temperature was at the same time lower along certain
broad belts of longitude.

On this view of the whole world, or at least of broad longitudinal
belts, having been simultaneously colder from pole to pole, much light
can be thrown on the present distribution of identical and allie