The nature of the evidence upon which our knowledge is based
is doubtless familiar to many whom I have the pleasure of now
addressing, but for the sake of those who have not such familiarity
with the subject I may be allowed to indicate very briefly its
general character. A rock-surface over which ice has flowed for any
considerable time exhibits either an abraded, worn, and smoothed
appearance, or the rocks are disrupted and broken, and larger or
smaller fragments are found to have been removed and carried forward
in the direction followed by the ice. Now, ice-worn and shattered
rock-surfaces of this description, such as can be seen underneath
existing glaciers, occur more or less abundantly over vast regions in
Europe. They are met with from the North Cape south as far as Leipzig,
and from the Outer Hebrides east to the valley of the Petchora and the
foot-slopes of the Ural Mountains. Nor are they confined to northern
Europe. They appear again and again in France and Spain and Italy,
and in the low-grounds of middle Europe, where they occupy positions
now far removed from the influence of glacial action. Such ice-worn
and disrupted rock-surfaces not only prove that glacier-ice formerly
covered large portions of our Continent, but they also indicate for
us the directions in which that enveloping ice moved. The smoother
surfaces in question are very frequently marked with coarse and fine
parallel scratches and grooves of precisely the same nature and origin
as the scratches and grooves which characterise the rocky bed of a
modern glacier. And these markings, having been produced by the sand,
grit, and stones which are pushed and dragged over the rocks by flowing
ice, necessarily discover for us the path of glacial movement. But
all rocks subjected to glacial action are not necessarily smoothed
and polished. Sometimes, owing to structural peculiarities, and for
various other reasons, rocks cannot resist the pressure of the ice,
but are crushed and broken, and the resulting fragments are rolled and
dragged forward in the direction of ice-flow. In this manner the path
of a glacier becomes strewed with débris which has from time to time
been forced from its rocky bed. There is really no mystery, therefore
in tracking the spoor of extinct glaciers; for we have two sets of
facts to aid us, either of which might suffice to indicate the extent
and direction of glaciation. Consider, however, for a moment, what one
observes in connection with rock-striation. We have, in the first
place, the rounding and smoothing, and the parallel ruts and striæ. Not
only so, but we frequently find that one side of prominent projecting
knolls and hills is more highly worn and abraded than the other. Often,
indeed, one side may show no trace whatsoever of abrasion. Here, again,
we have clear evidence of the direction of ice-flow. Who can doubt that
the worn and abraded rocks look towards the point whence the ice came,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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