PATAGONIA

• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Patagonia; Pacific; Argentina; Hielo; Ice cap
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.693.9652; http://www.rgs.org/NR/rdonlyres/A32DB2F0-D480-4E06-8D14-42B7C90A7E01/0/MAPatagonia.pdf

peaks of the Andes are quite low (few exceed 3000 metres) and rise for the most part from immense expanses of ice which maintain an average elevation of 1500 metres, and which are commonly referred to as the Patagonian ice-caps. In this region there is no distinct cordillera forming the boundary between Chile and Argentina, the various mountain chains being diffuse and not always forming the watershed. The area, which is bounded on the west by a complex series of islands, peninsulas and fiords, and on the east by a series of lakes, has been the subject of several boundary disputes and is still imperfectly surveyed. The famous explorer Alberto De Agostini wrote of this land, ‘The singular beauty of its fiords, the majesty of its mountains, the imposing vastness of its glaciers, which descend almost to the sea in a green frame of exuberant virgin forest, make of this region one of the most picturesque and enticing quarters of the globe’. At lat. 48ºS. the deep Baker Fiord on the Pacific coast is linked by the Rio Pascua to Lago San Martin to the south-east, thus constituting the only major interruption in the glacier system. The ice-cap to the north is referred to in these notes as Hielo Patagònico Norte (‘H.P.N.’); the much more extensive ice-cap to the south as Hielo Patagònico Sur (‘H.P.S.’). From these ice-caps emerge the highest peaks and rocky ridges of the cordillera, while at the margins, especially to the east, are found granite peaks of