Geological Observations on South AmericaDarwin, Charles
Science
Geological Observations on South America
Darwin, Charles
Beagle Expedition (1831-1836); Geology -- South America; Mollusks, Fossil -- South America; Paleontology
Mr. Lyell has arrived at a highly important conclusion with respect to
the age of the North American extinct mammifers (many of which are
closely allied to, and even identical with, those of the Pampean
formation), namely, that they lived subsequently to the period when
erratic boulders were transported by the agency of floating ice in
temperate latitudes. (“Geological Proceedings” volume 4 page 36.) Now
in the valley of the Santa Cruz, only fifty miles of latitude south of
the spot where the Macrauchenia was entombed, vast numbers of gigantic,
angular boulders, which must have been transported from the Cordillera
on icebergs, lie strewed on the plain, at the height of 1,400 feet
above the level of the sea. In ascending to this level, several
step-formed plains must be crossed, all of which have necessarily
required long time for their formation; hence the lowest or ninety feet
plain, with its superficial bed containing the remains of the
Macrauchenia, must have been formed very long subsequently to the
period when the 1,400 feet plain was beneath the sea, and boulders were
dropped on it from floating masses of ice. (It must not be inferred
from these remarks, that the ice-action ceased in South America at this
comparatively ancient period; for in Tierra del Fuego boulders were
probably transported contemporaneously with, if not subsequently to,
the formation of the ninety feet plain at S. Julian, and at other parts
of the coast of Patagonia.) Mr. Lyell’s conclusion, therefore, is thus
far confirmed in the southern hemisphere; and it is the more important,
as one is naturally tempted to admit so simple an explanation, that it
was the ice-period that caused the extinction of the numerous great
mammifers which so lately swarmed over the two Americas.
A SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING REMARKS ON THE PAMPEAN FORMATION.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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