In other places the bed of the glacier is rough and torn. The rocks
have been disrupted and their fragments have been carried away,--a
process known as _plucking_. Moving under immense pressure the ice
shatters the rock, breaks off projections, presses into crevices and
wedges the rocks apart, dislodges the blocks into which the rock is
divided by joints and bedding planes, and freezing fast to the
fragments drags them on. In this work the freezing and thawing of
subglacial waters in any cracks and crevices of the rock no doubt play
an important part. Plucking occurs especially where the bed rock is
weak because of close jointing. The product of plucking is bowlders,
while the product of abrasion is fine rock flour and sand.
Is the ground moraine of Figure 87 due chiefly to abrasion or to
plucking?
[Illustration: Fig. 111. Roches Moutonnés, Bronx Park, New York]
=Roches moutonnées and rounded hills.= The prominences left between
the hollows due to plucking are commonly ground down and rounded on
the stoss side,--the side from which the ice advances,--and sometimes
on the opposite, the lee side, as well. In this way the bed rock often
comes to have a billowy surface known as roches moutonnées (sheep
rocks). Hills overridden by an ice sheet often have similarly rounded
contours on the stoss side, while on the lee side they may be craggy,
either because of plucking or because here they have been less worn
from their initial profile (Fig. 112).
=The direction of glacier movement.= The direction of the flow of
vanished glaciers and ice sheets is recorded both in the differences
just mentioned in the profiles of overridden hills and also in the
minute details of the glacier trail.
Flint nodules or other small prominences in the bed rock are found
more worn on the stoss than on the lee side, where indeed they may
have a low cone of rock protected by them from abrasion. Cavities, on
the other hand, have their edges worn on the lee side and left sharp
upon the stoss.
Surfaces worn and torn in the ways which we have mentioned are said to
be glaciated. But it must not be supposed that a glacier everywhere
glaciates its bed. Although in places it acts as a rasp or as a pick,
in others, and especially where its pressure is least, as near the
terminus, it moves over its bed in the manner of a sled. Instances are
known where glaciers have advanced over deposits of sand and gravel
without disturbing them to any notable degree. Like a river, a glacier
does not everywhere erode. In places it leaves its bed undisturbed and
in places aggrades it by deposits of the ground moraine.
[Illustration: Fig. 112. A Glaciated Hill, Norway. Sharp
Weathered Mountain Peaks in the Distance]
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