Fragments of Science: A Series of Detached Essays, Addresses, and Reviews. V. 1-2Tyndall, John
Science
Fragments of Science: A Series of Detached Essays, Addresses, and Reviews. V. 1-2
Tyndall, John
Chemistry; Physics; Science
entered the glen sufficiently far to block up Glen Glaster, would
gradually retreat. Glen Glaster and its col being opened, the
subsidence of the lake eighty feet, from the level of the highest to
that of the second parallel road, would follow as a consequence. I
think this the most probable course of things, but it is also possible
that Glen Glaster may have been blocked by a glacier from Glen Trieg.
The ice dam continuing to retreat, at length permitted Glen Roy to
connect itself with upper Glen Spean. A continuous lake then filled
both glens, the level of which, as already explained, was determined
by the col at Makul, above the head of Loch Laggan. The last to yield
was the portion of the glacier which derived nutrition from Ben Nevis,
and probably also from the mountains north and south of Loch Arkaig.
But it at length yielded, and the waters in the glens resumed the
courses which they pursue to-day.
For the removal of the ice barriers no cataclysm is to be invoked; the
gradual melting of the dam would produce the entire series of
phenomena. In sinking from col to col the water would flow over a
gradually melting barrier, the surface of the imprisoned lake not
remaining sufficiently long at any particular level to produce a shelf
comparable to the parallel roads. By temporary halts in the process
of melting due to atmospheric conditions or to the character of the
dam itself, or through local softness in the drift, small
pseudo-terraces would be formed, which, to the perplexity of some
observers, are seen upon the flanks of the glens to-day.
In presence then of the fact that the barriers which stopped these
glens to a height, it may be, of 1,500 feet above the bottom of Glen
Spean, have dissolved and left not a wreck behind; in presence of the
fact, insisted on by Professor Geikie, that barriers of detritus would
undoubtedly have been able to maintain themselves had they ever been
there; in presence of the fact that great glaciers once most certainly
filled these valleys--that the whole region, as proved by Mr.
Jamieson, is filled with the traces of their action; the theory which
ascribes the parallel roads to lakes dammed by barriers of ice has, in
my opinion, a degree of probability on its side which amounts to a
practical demonstration of its truth.
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