A History of the City of Brooklyn and Kings County, Volume I.Ostrander, Stephen M.
History
A History of the City of Brooklyn and Kings County, Volume I.
Ostrander, Stephen M.
Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.) -- History; Kings County (N.Y.) -- History
In an admirable review of the subject written by Charles M. Skinner we
are presented with a picturesque outline of the glacial theory. We are
reminded that Brooklyn stands on rubble that was rolled down from the
New England mountains to the northward by a glacier larger than the
combined areas of all the glaciers now existing on the earth. How many
thousands of years ago this great glacier began its work we may only
guess within somewhat liberal margins. This continent of ice covered the
whole of the northern part of North America, burying mountains beneath
its bulk and hollowing the beds of the great fresh-water seas that
Chicago and its sister cities front upon to-day, burying, too, for aught
we know, the remains of civilizations, though nothing at present has
been taken out of the glacial drift, except rude stone implements, to
show what the probable condition of man was at that time.
This ice lay so deep that not even Mount Washington barred its advance,
and to-day geologists find the summit of this mountain heaped with
blocks of stone that were dragged from other points and left there when
the ice melted; for glaciers are not stationary, like ice on ponds and
marshes, but have an onward movement toward their point of melting that
varies, with the slope of their beds, from six to thirty-six inches a
day. In Greenland the whole interior is covered with ice thousands of
feet thick, the movement of which is hindered by a wall of mountains
that nearly surrounds that island, but wherever a valley opens a way for
it the ice sends down a tongue to the sea, and from these tongues the
ocean currents break off the icebergs that float down the Atlantic. In
their descent these glaciers act as plows, wearing off so much earth and
rock from the hills that the icebergs are freighted with them, and where
they melt their stony burdens sink to the bottom of the sea, forming the
Grand Banks of Newfoundland.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account