The Glaciers of the Alps: Being a narrative of excursions and ascents, an account of the origin and phenomena of glaciers and an exposition of the physical principles to which they are relatedTyndall, John
Science
The Glaciers of the Alps: Being a narrative of excursions and ascents, an account of the origin and phenomena of glaciers and an exposition of the physical principles to which they are related
Tyndall, John
Alps -- Description and travel; Glaciers -- Alps
I was led to the foregoing results by reflecting on an experiment
performed by Mr. Faraday, at a Friday evening meeting of the Royal
Institution, on the 7th of June, 1850, and described in the 'Athenaeum'
and 'Literary Gazette' for the same month. Mr. Faraday then showed that
when two pieces of ice, with moistened surfaces, were placed in contact,
they became cemented together by the freezing of the film of water
between them, while, when the ice was below 32 deg. Fahr., and therefore
_dry_, no effect of the kind could be produced. The freezing was also
found to take place under water; and indeed it occurs even when the
water in which the ice is plunged is as hot as the hand can bear.
A generalisation from this interesting fact led me to conclude that a
bruised mass of ice, if closely confined, must re-cement itself when its
particles are brought into contact by pressure; in fact, the whole of
the experiments above recorded immediately suggested themselves to my
mind as natural deductions from the principle established by Faraday. A
rough preliminary experiment assured me that the deductions would stand
testing; and the construction of the box-wood moulds was the
consequence. We could doubtless mould many solid substances to any
extent by suitable pressure, breaking the attachment of their particles,
and re-establishing a certain continuity by the mere force of cohesion.
With such substances, to which we should never think of applying the
term viscous, we might also imitate the changes of form to which
glaciers are subject: but, superadded to the mere cohesion which here
comes into play, we have, in the case of ice, the actual regelation of
the severed surfaces, and consequently a more perfect solid. In the
Introduction to this book I have referred to the production of slaty
cleavage by pressure; and at a future page I hope to show that the
lamination of the ice of glaciers is due to the same cause; but, as
justly observed by Mr. John Ball, there is no tendency to cleave in the
_sound_ ice of glaciers; in fact, this tendency is obliterated by the
perfect regelation of the severed surfaces.
[Sidenote: RECENT EXPERIMENTS OF FARADAY.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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