Man and the Glacial PeriodWright, G. Frederick (George Frederick)
History
Man and the Glacial Period
Wright, G. Frederick (George Frederick)
Glacial epoch; Prehistoric peoples
"Within the area in England and Wales covered by the Irish Sea Glacier
all the phenomena point to the action of land-ice, with the inevitable
concomitants of subglacial streams, extra-morainic lakes, etc. There is
nothing to suggest marine conditions in any form except the occurrence
of shells or shell fragments; and these present so many features of
association, condition, and position inconsistent with, what we should
be led to expect from a study of recent marine life, that conchologists
are unanimous in declaring that not one single group of them is on the
site whereon the shells lived. It is a most significant fact--one out of
a hundred which could be cited did space permit--that in the ten thousand
square miles of, as it is supposed, recently elevated sea-bottom, not a
single example of a bivalve shell with its valves in apposition has ever
been found! Nor has a boulder or other stone been found encrusted with
those ubiquitous marine parasites, the barnacles.
"The evidences of the action of land-ice within the area are everywhere
apparent in the constancy of direction of-- (1.) Striæ upon rock
surfaces. (2.) The terminal curvature of rocks. (3.) The 'pull-over' of
soft rocks. (4.) The transportal of local boulders. (5.) The orientation
of the long axes of large boulders. (6.) The false bedding of sands
and gravels. (7.) The elongation of drift-hills. (8.) The relations
of 'crag and tail.' There is a similar general constancy, too, in the
directions of the striæ upon large boulders. Upon the under side they run
longitudinally from southeast (or thereabouts) to northwest, while upon
the upper surface they originate at the opposite end, showing that the
scratches on the under side were produced by the stone being dragged from
northwest to southeast, while those on the top were the product of the
passage of stone-laden ice over it in the same direction.
"Such an agreement cannot be fortuitous, but must be attributed to the
operation of some agent acting in close parallelism over the whole
area. To attribute such regularity to the action of marine currents is
to ignore the most elementary principles of marine hydrology. Icebergs
must, in the nature of things, be the most erratic of all agents, for
the direction of drift is determined--among other varying factors--by
the draught of the berg. A mass of small draught will be carried by
surface currents, while one of greater depth will be brought within the
influence of under-currents; and hence it not infrequently happens that
while floe-ice is drifting, say, to the southeast, giant bergs will go
crashing through it to the northwest. There are tidal influences also to
be reckoned with, and it is matter of common knowledge that flotsam and
jetsam travel back and forth, as they are alternately affected by ebb and
flood tide.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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