The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 74, December, 1863: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
General
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 74, December, 1863: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
Those who have read his startling investigations will remember that by
sending a beam of sunlight through ice he brought to view the primitive
crystalline forms to which it owes its solidity, and that he insisted
that these star-shaped figures are always in the plane of
crystallization. Without knowing what might be their origin, I had
myself noticed these figures, and represented them in a diagram, part of
which is reproduced in the annexed wood-cut. I had considered them to be
compressed air-bubbles; and though I cannot, under my present
circumstances, repeat the experiment of Dr. Tyndall upon glacier-ice, I
conceive that the star-shaped figures represented upon Pl. VII. figs. 8
and 9, in my "Systeme Glaciaire," may refer to the same phenomenon as
that observed by him in pond-ice. Yet while I make this concession, I
still maintain, that besides these crystalline figures there exist
compressed air-bubbles in the angular fragments of the glacier-ice, as
shown in the above wood-cut; and that these bubbles are grouped in sets,
trending in the same direction in one and the same fragment, and
diverging under various angles in the different fragments. I have
explained this fact concerning the position of the compressed
air-bubbles, by assuming that ice, under various pressure, may take the
appearance it presents in each fragment with every compressed air-bubble
trending in the same direction, while their divergence in the different
fragments is owing to a change in the respective position of the
fragments resulting from the movement of the whole glacier. I have
further assumed, that throughout the glacier the change of the snow and
porous ice into compact ice is the result of successive freezing,
alternating with melting, or at least with the resumption of a
temperature of 32 deg. Fahrenheit in consequence of the infiltration of
liquid water, to which the effects of pressure must be added, the
importance of which in this connection no one could have anticipated
prior to the experiments of Dr. Tyndall. Of course, if the interior
temperature of the glacier never falls below 32 deg., the changes here
alluded to could not take place. But if the _vacuous spaces_ observed by
Dr. Tyndall are really identical with the spaces I have described as
_extremely flattened air-bubbles_, I think the arrangement of these
spaces as above described proves that it freezes in the interior of the
glacier to the depth at which these crosswise fragments have been
observed: that is, at a depth of two hundred feet. For, since the
experiments of Dr. Tyndall show that the vacuous spaces are parallel to
the surface of crystallization, and as no crystallization of water can
take place unless the surrounding temperature fall below 32 deg., it follows
that these vacuous spaces could not exist in such large continuous
fragments, presenting throughout the fragments the same trend, if there
had been no frost within the mass, affecting the whole of such a
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.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account