Fig. 134—Southwestern aspect of the Cordillera Vilcapampa between Anta and Urubamba from Lake Huaipo. Rugged summit topography in the background, graded post-mature slopes in the middle distance, and solution lake in limestone in the foreground.
Fig. 135—Summit view, Cordillera Vilcapampa. There are fifteen glaciers represented in this photograph. The camera stands on the summit of a minor divide in the zone of nivation.
These features are surprising because neither Whymper[44] nor Wolf[45] mentions the former greater extent of the ice on the volcanoes of Ecuador, only ten or twelve degrees farther north. Moreover, Reiss[46] denies that the hypothesis of universal climatic change is supported by the facts of a limited glaciation in the High Andes of Ecuador; and J. W. Gregory[47] completely overlooks published proof of the existence of former more extensive glaciers elsewhere in the Andes:
“... the absence not only of any traces of former more extensive glaciation from the tropics, as in the Andes and Kilimandjaro, but also from the Cape.” He says further: “In spite of the extensive glaciers now in existence on the higher peaks of the Andes, there is practically no evidence of their former greater extension.”(!)