Part 35

How can we accept the idea that the plains, but yesterday smiling and fertile, were formerly covered, and that for a very long period, with an immense sheet of ice and snow? To satisfy the reader that the proof of this can be established on sufficient evidence, it is necessary to direct his attention to certain parts of Europe. It is essential to visit, at least in idea, a country where _glacial phenomena_ still exist, and to prove that the phenomena, now confined to those countries, were spread, during geological times, over spaces infinitely vaster. We shall choose for our illustration, and as an example, the glaciers of the Alps. We shall show that the glaciers of Switzerland and Savoy have not always been restricted to their present limits; that they are, so to speak, only miniature resemblances of the gigantic glaciers of times past; and that they formerly extended over all the great plains which extend from the foot of the chain of the Alps.

To establish these proofs we must enter upon some consideration of existing glaciers, upon their mode of formation, and their peculiar phenomena.

The snow which, during the whole year, falls upon the mountains, does not melt, but maintains its solid state, when the elevation exceeds the height of 9,000 feet or thereabouts. Where the snow accumulates to a great thickness, in the valleys, or in the deep fissures in the ground, it hardens under the influence of the pressure resulting from the incumbent weight. But it always happens that a certain quantity of water, resulting from the momentary thawing of the superficial portions, traverses its substance, and this forms a crystalline mass of ice, with a granular structure, which the Swiss naturalists designate _névé_. From the successive melting and freezing caused by the heat by day and the cold by night, and the infiltration of air and water into its interstices, the _névé_ is slowly transformed into a homogeneous azure mass of ice, full of an infinite number of little air-bubbles--this was what was formerly called _glace bulleuse_ (bubble-ice). Finally, these masses, becoming completely frozen, water replaces the bubbles of air. Then the transformation is complete; the ice is homogeneous, and presents those beautiful azure tints so much admired by the tourist who traverses the magnificent glaciers of Switzerland and Savoy.

Such is the origin of, and such is the mode in which the glaciers of the Alps are formed. An important property of glaciers remains to be pointed out. They have a general movement of translation in the direction of their slope, under the influence of which they make a certain yearly progress downward, according to the angle of the slope. The glacier of the Aar, for example, advances at the rate of about 250 feet each year.

Under the joint influence of the slope, the weight of the frozen mass, and the melting of the parts which touch the earth, the glacier thus always tends downwards; but from the effects of a more genial temperature, the lower extremity melting rapidly, has a tendency to recede. It is the difference between these two actions which constitutes the real progressive movement of the glacier.

The friction exercised by the glacier upon the bottom and sides of the valley, ought necessarily to leave its traces on the rocks with which it may happen to be in contact. Over all the places where a glacier has passed, in fact, we remark that the rocks are polished, levelled, rounded, and, as it is termed, _moutonnées_. These rocks present, besides, striations or scratches, running in the direction of the motion of the glacier, which have been produced by hard and angular fragments of stones imbedded in the ice, and which leave their marks on the hardest rocks under the irresistible pressure of the heavy-descending mass of ice. In a work of great merit, which we have before quoted, M. Charles Martins explains the physical mechanism by which granite rocks borne onwards in the progressive movements of a glacier, have scratched, scored, and rounded the softer rocks which the glacier has encountered in its descent. “The friction,” says M. Martins, “which the glacier exercises upon the bottom and upon the walls, is too considerable not to leave its traces upon the rocks with which it may be in contact; but its action varies according to the mineralogical nature of the rocks, and the configuration of the ground they cover. If we penetrate between the soil and the bottom of the glacier, taking advantage of the ice-caverns which sometimes open at its edge or extremity, we creep over a bed of pebbles and fine sand saturated with water. If we remove this bed, we soon perceive that the underlying rock is levelled, polished, ground down by friction, and covered with rectilinear striæ, resembling sometimes small grooves, more frequently perfectly straight scratches, as though they had been produced by means of a graver, or even a very fine needle. The mechanism by which these striæ have been produced is that which industry employs to polish stones and metals. We rub the metallic surface with a fine powder called _emery_, until we give it a brilliancy which proceeds from the reflection of the light from an infinity of minute striæ. The bed of pebbles and mud, interposed between the glacier and the subjacent rock, here represents the emery. The rock is the metallic surface, and the mass of the glacier which presses on and displaces the mud in its descent towards the plain, represents the hand of the polisher. These striæ always follow the direction of the glacier; but as it is sometimes subject to small lateral deviations, the striæ sometimes cross, forming very small angles with one another. If we examine the rocks by the side of a glacier, we find similar striæ engraved on them where they have been in contact with the frozen mass. I have often broken the ice where it thus pressed upon the rock, and have found under it polished surfaces, covered with striations. The pebbles and grains of sand which had engraved them were still encased in the ice, fixed like the diamond of the glazier at the end of the instrument with which he marks his glass.

“The sharpness and depth of the striæ or scratches depend on many circumstances: if the rock acted upon is calcareous, and the emery is represented by pebbles and sand derived from harder rocks, such as gneiss, granite, or protogine, the scratches are very marked. This we can verify at the foot of the glaciers of Rosenlaui, and of the Grindenwald in the Canton of Berne. On the contrary, if the rock is gneissic, granitic, or serpentinous, that is to say, very hard, the scratches will be less deep and less marked, as may be seen in the glaciers of the Aar, of Zermatt, and Chamounix. The polish will be the same in both cases, and it is often as perfect as in marble polished for architectural purposes.

“The scratches engraved upon the rocks which confine these glaciers are generally horizontal or parallel to the surface. Sometimes, owing to the contractions of the valley, these striæ are nearly vertical. This, however, need not surprise us. Forced onwards by the superincumbent weight, the glacier squeezes itself through the narrow part, its bulk expanding upwards, in which case the flanks of the mountain which barred its passage are marked vertically. This is admirably seen near the Châlets of Stieregg, a narrow defile which the lower glacier of the Grindenwald has to clear before it discharges itself into the valley of the same name. Upon the right bank of the glacier the scratches are inclined at an angle of 45° to the horizon. Upon the left bank the glacier rises sometimes quite up to the neighbouring forest, carrying with it great clods of earth charged with rhododendrons and clumps of alder, birches, and firs. The more tender or foliated rocks were broken up and demolished by the prodigious force of the glacier; the harder rocks offered more resistance, but their surface is planed down, polished, and striated, testifying to the enormous pressure which they had to undergo. In the same manner the glacier of the Aar, at the foot of the promontory on which M. Agassiz’ tent was erected, is polished to a great height, and on the face, turned towards the upper part of the valley, I have observed scratches inclined 64°. The ice, erect against this escarpment, seemed to wish to scale it, but the granite rock held fast, and the glacier was compelled to pass round it slowly.

“In recapitulation, the considerable pressure of a glacier, joined to its movement of progression, acts at once upon the bottom and flanks of the valley which it traverses: it polishes all the rocks which may be too hard to be demolished by it, and frequently impresses upon them a peculiar and characteristic form. In destroying all the asperities and inequalities of these rocks, it levels their surfaces and rounds them on the sides pointing up the stream, whilst in the opposite direction, or down the stream, they sometimes preserve their abrupt, unequal, and rugged surface. We must comprehend, in short, that the force of the glacier acts principally on the side which is towards the circle whence it descends, in the same way that the piles of a bridge are more damaged up-stream, than down, by the icebergs which the river brings down during the winter. Seen from a distance, a group of rocks thus rounded and polished reminds us of the appearance of a flock of sheep: hence the name _roches moutonnées_ given them by the Swiss naturalists.”

Another phenomenon which plays an important part in existing glaciers, and in those, also, which formerly covered Switzerland, is found in the fragments of rock, often of enormous size, which have been transported and deposited during their movement of progression.

The peaks of the Alps are exposed to continual degradations. Formed of granitic rocks--rocks eminently alterable under the action of air and water, they become disintegrated and often fall in fragments more or less voluminous. “The masses of snow,” continues Martins, “which hang upon the Alps during winter, the rain which infiltrates between their beds during summer, the sudden action of torrents of water, and more slowly, but yet more powerfully, the chemical affinities, degrade, disintegrate, and decompose the hardest rocks. The débris thus produced falls from the summits into the circles occupied by the glaciers with a great crash, accompanied by frightful noises and great clouds of dust. Even in the middle of summer I have seen these avalanches of stone precipitated from the highest ridges of the Schreckhorn, forming upon the immaculate snow a long black train, consisting of enormous blocks and an immense number of smaller fragments. In the spring a rapid thawing of the winter snows often causes accidental torrents of extreme violence. If the melting is slow, water insinuates itself into the smallest fissures of the rocks, freezes there, and rends asunder the most refractory masses. The blocks detached from the mountains are sometimes of gigantic dimensions: we have found them sixty feet in length, and those measuring thirty feet each way are by no means rare in the Alps.”[106]

[106] _Revue des Deux Mondes_, p. 925; March 1, 1847.

Thus, the action of aqueous infiltrations followed by frost, the chemical decomposition which granite undergoes under the influence of a moist atmosphere, degrade and disintegrate the rocks which constitute the mountains enclosing the glacier. Blocks, sometimes of very considerable dimensions, often fall at the foot of these mountains on to the surface of the glacier. Were it immovable the débris would accumulate at its base, and would form there a mass of ruins heaped up without order. But the slow progression, the continuous displacement of the glacier, lead, in the distribution of these blocks, to a certain kind of arrangement: the blocks falling upon its surface participate in its movement, and advance with it. But other downfalls take place daily, and the new débris following the first, the whole form a line along the outer edge of the glacier. These regular trains of rocks bear the name of “_moraines_.” When the rocks fall from two mountains, and on each edge of the glacier, and two parallel lines of débris are formed, they are called _lateral moraines_. There are also _median moraines_, which are formed when two glaciers are confluent, in such a manner that the _lateral moraine_, on the right of the one, trends towards the left-hand one of the other. Finally, those moraines are _frontal_, or _terminal_, which repose, not upon the glacier, but at its point of termination in the valleys, and which are due to the accumulation of blocks fallen from the terminal escarpments of glaciers there arrested by some obstacle. In PLATE XXXI. we have represented an actual Swiss glacier, in which are united the physical and geological peculiarities belonging to these enormous masses of frozen water: the moraines here are _lateral_, that is to say, formed of a double line of débris.

Transported slowly on the surface of the glacier, all the blocks from the mountain preserve their original forms unaltered; the sharpness of their edges is never altered by their gentle transport and almost imperceptible motion. Atmospheric agency only can affect or destroy these rocks when formed of hard resisting material. They then remain nearly of the same form and volume they had when they fell on the surface of the glacier; but it is otherwise with blocks and fragments enclosed between the rock and the glacier, whether it be at the bottom or between the glacier and its lateral walls. Some of these, under the powerful and continuous action of this gigantic grinding process, will be reduced to an impalpable mud, others are worn into facets, while others are rounded, presenting a multitude of scratches crossing each other in all directions. These scratched pebbles are of great importance in studying the extent of ancient glaciers; they testify, on the spot, to the existence of pre-existing glaciers which shaped, ground, and striated the pebbles, which water does not; on the contrary, in the latter, they become polished and rounded, and even natural striations are effaced.

Thus, huge blocks transported to great distances from their true geological beds, that is, _erratic blocks_, to use the proper technical term, rounded (_moutonnées_), polished, and scratched surfaces, _moraines_; finally, pebbles, ground, polished, rounded, or worn into smooth surfaces, are all physical effects of glaciers in motion, and their presence alone affords sufficient proof to the naturalist that a glacier formerly existed in the locality where he finds them. The reader will now comprehend how it is possible to recognise, in our days, the existence of ancient glaciers in different parts of the world. Above all, wherever we may find both _erratic blocks_ and _moraines_, and observe, at the same time, indications of rocks having been polished and striated in the same direction, we may pronounce with certainty as to the existence of a glacier during geological times. Let us take some instances.

At Pravolta, in the Alps, going towards _Monte Santo-Primo_, upon a calcareous rock, we find the mass of granite represented in Fig. 196. This erratic block exists, with thousands of others, on the slopes of the mountain. It is about fifty feet long, nearly forty feet broad, and five-and-twenty in height; and all its edges and angles are perfect. Some parallel striæ occur along the neighbouring rocks. All this clearly demonstrates that a glacier existed, in former times, in this part of the Alps, where none appear at the present time. It is a glacier, then, which has transported and deposited here this enormous block, weighing nearly 2,000 tons.

In the Jura Mountains, on the hill of Fourvières, a limestone eminence at Lyons, blocks of granite are found, evidently derived from the Alps, and transported there by the Swiss glaciers. The particular mode of transport is represented theoretically in Fig. 197. A represents, for example, the summit of the Alps, B the Jura Mountains, or the hill of Fourvières, at Lyons. At the glacial period, the glacier A B C extended from the Alps to the mountain B. The granitic débris, which was detached from the summit of the Alpine mountains, fell on the surface of the glacier. The movement of progression of this glacier transported these blocks as far as the summit B. At a later period the temperature of the globe was raised, and when the ice had melted, the blocks, D E, were quietly deposited on the spots where they are now found, without having sustained the slightest shock or injury in this singular mode of transport.

Every day traces, more or less recognisable, are found on the Alps of ancient glaciers far distant from their existing limits. Heaps of débris, of all sizes, comprehending blocks with sharp-pointed angles, are found in the Swiss plains and valleys. _Blocs perchés_ (Perched blocks), as in PL. XXXI., are often seen perched upon points of the Alps situated far above existing glaciers, or dispersed over the plain which separates the Alps from the Jura, or even preserving an incredible equilibrium, when their great mass is taken into consideration, at considerable heights on the eastern flank of this chain of mountains. It is by the aid of these indications that the geologist has been able to trace to extremely remote distances signs of the former existence of the ancient glaciers of the Alps, to follow them in their course, and fix their point of origin, and where they terminated. Thus the humble Mount Sion, a gently-swelling hill situated to the north of Geneva, was the point at which three great ancient glaciers had their confluence--the glacier of the Rhône, which filled all the basin of Lake Leman, or Lake of Geneva; that of the Isère, which issued from the Annecy and Bourget Lakes; and that of the Arve, which had its source in the valley of Chamounix, all converged at this point. According to M. G. de Mortillet, who has carefully studied this geological question, the extent and situation of these ancient glaciers of the Alps were as follows:--Upon its northern flank the _glacier of the Rhine_ occupied all the basin of Lake Constance, and extended to the borders of Germany; that of the _Linth_, which was arrested at the extremity of the Lake of Zurich--this city is built upon its terminal moraine--that of the _Reus_, which covered the lake of the four cantons with blocks torn from the peaks of Saint-Gothard;--that of the _Aar_, the last moraines of which crown the hills in the environs of Berne;--those of the _Arve_ and the _Isère_, which, as we have said, debouched from Lake Annecy and Lake Bourget respectively;--that of the _Rhône_, the most important of all. It is this glacier which has deposited upon the flanks of the Jura, at the height of 3,400 feet above the level of the sea, the great _erratic blocks_ already described. This mighty glacier of the Rhône had its origin in all the lateral valleys formed by the two parallel chains of the Valais. It filled all the Valais, and extended into the plain, lying between the Alps and the Jura, from Fort de L’Écluse, near the fall of the Rhône, up to the neighbourhood of Aarau.

The fragments of rocks transported by the ice-sea which occupied all the Swiss plain follow, in northerly direction, the course of the valley of the Rhine. On the other hand, the glacier of the Rhône, after reaching the plain of Switzerland, turned off obliquely towards the south, received the glacier of the Arve, then that of the Isère, passed between the Jura and the mountains of the Grande-Chartreuse, spread over La Bresse, then nearly all Dauphiny, and terminated in the neighbourhood of Lyons.

Upon the southern flank of the Alps, the ancient glaciers, according to M. de Mortillet’s map, occupied all the great valleys from that of the Dora, on the west, to that of the Tagliamento, on the east. “The glacier of the _Dora_” says de Mortillet, whose text we greatly abridge, “debouched into the valley of the Po, close to Turin. That of the _Dora-Baltéa_ entered the plain of Ivréa, where it has left a magnificent semicircle of hills, which formed its terminal moraine. That of the _Toce_ discharged itself into Lake Maggiore, against the glacier of the Tessin, and then threw itself into the valley of Lake Orta, at the southern extremity of which its terminal moraines were situated. That of the Tessin filled the basin of Lake Maggiore, and established itself between Lugano and Varèse. That of the _Adda_ filled the basin of Lake Como, and established itself between Mendrizio and Lecco, thus describing a vast semicircle. That of the _Oglio_ terminated a little beyond Lake Iseo. That of the _Adige_, finding no passage through the narrow valley of Roveredo, where the valley became very narrow, took another course, and filled the immense valley of the Lake of Garda. At Novi it has left a magnificent moraine, of which Dante speaks in his ‘Inferno.’ That of the _Brenta_ extended over the plain of that commune. The _Drave_ and the _Tagliamento_ had also their glaciers. Finally, glaciers occupied all the valleys of the Austrian and Bavarian Alps.”[107]

[107] “Carte des Anciens Glaciers des Alpes,” pp. 8-10. (1860.)

Similar traces of the existence of ancient glaciers occur in many other European countries. In the Pyrenees, in Corsica, the Vosges, the Jura, &c., extensive ranges of country have been covered, in geological times, by these vast plains of ice. The glacier of the Moselle was the most considerable of the glaciers of the Vosges, receiving numerous affluents; its lowest frontal moraine, which is situated below Remiremont, could not be less than a mile and a quarter in length.

But the phenomenon of the glacial extension which we have examined in the Alps was not confined to Central Europe. The same traces of their ancient existence are observed in all the north of Europe, in Russia, Iceland, Norway, Prussia, the British Islands, part of Germany, in the north, and even in some parts of the south, of Spain. In England, _erratic_ blocks of granite are found which were derived from the mountains of Norway. It is evident that these blocks were borne by a glacier which extended from the north pole to England. In this manner they crossed the Baltic and the North Seas. In Prussia similar traces are observable.

Thus, during the Quaternary epoch, glaciers which are now limited to the Polar regions, or to mountainous countries of considerable altitude, extended very far beyond their present known limits; and, taken in connection with the deluge of the north, and the vast amount of organic life which they destroyed, they form, perhaps, the most striking and mysterious of all geological phenomena.

M. Edouard Collomb, to whom we owe much of our knowledge of ancient glaciers, furnishes the following note explanatory of a map of Ancient Glaciers which he has prepared:--

“The area occupied by the ancient Quaternary glaciers may be divided into two orographical regions:--1. The region of the north, from lat. 52° or 55° up to the North Pole. 2. The region of Central Europe and part of the south.

“The region of the north which has been covered by the ancient glaciers comprehends all the Scandinavian peninsula, Sweden, Norway, and a part of Western Russia, extending from the Niemen on the north in a curve which passed near the sources of the Dnieper and the Volga, and thence took a direction towards the shores of the glacial ocean. This region comprehends Iceland, Scotland, Ireland, the isles dependent on them, and, finally, a great part of England.