The Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, Vol. XLIX: April-October 1850Various
Science
The Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, Vol. XLIX: April-October 1850
Various
Science -- Periodicals
I should not omit here to mention a fact which, in my opinion, has a
great theoretical importance, namely, that in the northern erratics,
even the largest boulders, as far as I know, are rounded, and
scratched and polished; at least, all those which are found beyond the
immediate vicinity of the higher mountain ranges, shewing that the
accumulations of ice which moved the northern erratics covered the
whole country; and this view is sustained by another set of facts
equally important, namely, that the highest ridges, the highest rugged
mountains, at least, in this continent and north of the Alps in
Europe, are as completely polished and smoothed as the lower lands,
and only a very few peaks seem to have risen above the sheet of ice;
whilst, in the Alps, the summits of the mountains stand generally
above these accumulations of ice, and have supplied the surface of the
glaciers with large numbers of angular boulders, which have been
carried upon the back of glaciers to the lower valleys and adjacent
plains without losing their angular forms.
With respect to the irregular accumulation of drift-materials in the
north, I may add, that there is not only no indication of
stratification among them, such, unquestionably, as water would have
left, but that the very nature of these materials shews plainly that
they are of terrestrial origin; for the mud which sticks between them
adheres to all the little roughnesses of the pebbles, fills them out,
and has the peculiar adhesive character of the mud ground under the
glaciers, and differing entirely in that respect from the gravels, and
pebbles, and sands washed by water-currents, which leave each pebble
clean, and never form adhering masses, unless penetrated by an
infiltration of limestone.
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