The Forms of Water in Clouds and Rivers, Ice and GlaciersTyndall, John
Science
The Forms of Water in Clouds and Rivers, Ice and Glaciers
Tyndall, John
Clouds; Glaciers; Ice; Rivers; Water
371. But this is small compared with some of the rocks which
constitute the freight of even recent glaciers. Let us visit another
of them. We have already been to Stalden, where the valley divides
into two branches, the right branch running to St. Nicholas and
Zermatt, and the left one to Saas and the Monte Moro. Three hours
above Saas we come upon the end of the Allelein glacier, not filling
the main valley, but thrown athwart it so as to stop its drainage
like a dam. Above this ice-dam we have the Mattmark Lake, and at the
head of the lake a small inn well known to travellers over the Monte
Moro.
372. Close to this inn is the greatest boulder that we have ever
seen. It measures 240,000 cubic feet. Looking across the valley we
notice a glacier with its present end half a mile from the boulder.
The stone, I believe, is serpentine, and were you and I to explore
the Schwartzberg glacier to its upper fastnesses, we should find
among them the birthplace of this gigantic stone. Four-and-twenty
years ago, when the glacier reached the place now occupied by the
boulder, it landed there its mighty freight, and then retreated.
There is a second ice-borne rock at hand which would be considered
vast were it not dwarfed by the aspect of its huger neighbour.
373. Evidence of this kind might be multiplied to any extent. In
fact, at this moment, distinguished men, like Professor Favre of
Geneva, are determining from the distribution of the erratic blocks
the extent of the ancient glaciers of Switzerland. It was, however,
an engineer named Venetz that first brought these evidences to light,
and announced to an incredulous world the vast extension of the
ancient ice. M. Agassiz afterwards developed and wonderfully expanded
the discovery. Perhaps the most interesting observation regarding
ancient glaciers is that of Dr. Hooker, who, during a recent visit
to Palestine, found the celebrated Cedars of Lebanon growing upon
ancient moraines.
§ 55. _Ancient Glaciers of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales._
374. At the time the ice attained this extraordinary development in
the Alps, many other portions of Europe, where no glaciers now exist,
were covered with them. In the Highlands of Scotland, among the
mountains of England, Ireland, and Wales, the ancient glaciers have
written their story as plainly as in the Alps themselves. I should
like to wander with you through Borrodale in Cumberland, or through
the valleys near Bethgellert in Wales. Under all the beauty of the
present scenery we should discover the memorials of a time when the
whole region was locked in the embrace of ice. Professor Ramsay is
especially distinguished by his writings on the ancient glaciers of
Wales.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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