The Glaciers of the Alps Part 20

Fig. 19. _To face p. 264_.]

When a glacier diminishes in size it leaves its lateral moraines stranded on the flanks of the valleys. Successive shrinkings may thus occur, and _have_ occurred at intervals of centuries; and a succession of old lateral moraines, such as many glacier-valleys exhibit, is the consequence. The Mer de Glace, for example, has its old lateral moraines, which run parallel with its present ones. The glacier may also diminish _in length_ at distant intervals; the result being a succession of more or less concentric terminal moraines. In front of the Rhone-glacier we have six or seven such moraines, and the Mer de Glace also possesses a series of them.

Let us now consider the effect produced by a block of stone upon the surface of a glacier. The ice around it receives the direct rays of the sun, and is acted on by the warm air; it is therefore constantly melting. The stone also receives the solar beams, is warmed, and transmits its heat, by conduction, to the ice beneath it. If the heat thus transmitted to the ice through the stone be less than an equal s.p.a.ce of the surrounding ice receives, it is manifest that the ice around the stone will waste more quickly than that beneath it, and the consequence is, that, as the surface sinks, it leaves behind it a pillar of ice, on which the block is elevated. If the stone be wide and flat, it may rise to a considerable height, and in this position it const.i.tutes what is called a glacier-_table_. (See Fig. 6.)

[Sidenote: GLACIER TABLES ACCOUNTED FOR.]

Almost all glaciers present examples of such tables; but no glacier with which I am acquainted exhibits them in greater number and perfection than the Unteraar glacier, near the Grimsel. Vast ma.s.ses of granite are thus poised aloft on icy pedestals; but a limit is placed to their exaltation by the following circ.u.mstance. The sun plays obliquely upon the table all day; its southern extremity receives more heat than its northern, and the consequence is, that it _dips_ towards the south.

Strictly speaking, the plane of the dip rotates a little during the day, being a little inclined towards the east in the morning, north and south a little after noon, and inclined towards the west in the evening; so that, theoretically speaking, the block is a sun-dial, showing by its position the hour of the day. This rotation is, however, too small to be sensible, and hence _the dip of the stones upon a glacier sufficiently exposed to the sunlight, enables us at any time to draw the meridian line along its surface_. The inclination finally becomes so great that the block slips off its pedestal, and begins to form another, while the one which it originally occupied speedily disappears, under the influence of sun and air. Fig. 20 represents a typical section of a glacier-table, the sun's rays being supposed to fall in the direction of the shading lines.

[Sidenote: TYPE "TABLE."]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 20. Typical section of a glacier Table.]

Stones of a certain size are always lifted in the way described. A considerable portion of the heat which a large block receives is wasted by radiation, and by communication to the air, so that the quant.i.ty which reaches the ice beneath is trifling. Such a ma.s.s is, of course, a protector of the ice beneath it. But if the stone be small, and dark in colour, it absorbs the heat with avidity, communicates it quickly to the ice with which it is in contact, and consequently sinks in the ice.

This is also the case with bits of dirt and the finer fragments of debris; they sink in the glacier. Sometimes, however, a pretty thick layer of sand is washed over the ice from the moraines, or from the mountain-sides; and such sand-layers give birth to ice-cones, which grow to peculiarly grand dimensions on the Lower Aar glacier. I say "grow,"

but the truth, of course, is, that the surrounding ice wastes, while the portion underneath the sand is so protected that it remains as an eminence behind. At first sight, these sand-covered cones appear huge heaps of dirt, but on examination they are found to be cones of ice, and that the dirt const.i.tutes merely a superficial covering.

Turn we now to the moraines. Protecting, as they do, the ice from waste, they rise, as might be expected, in vast ridges above the general surface of the glacier. In some cases the surrounding ma.s.s has been so wasted as to leave the spines of ice which support the moraines forty or fifty feet above the general level of the glacier. I should think the moraines of the Mer de Glace about the Tacul rise to this height. But lower down, in the neighbourhood of the Echelets, these high ridges disappear, and nought remains to mark the huge moraine but a strip of dirt, and perhaps a slight longitudinal protuberance on the surface of the glacier. How have the blocks vanished that once loaded the moraines near the Tacul? They have been swallowed in the creva.s.ses which intersect the moraines lower down; and if we could examine the ice at the Echelets we should find the engulfed rocks in the body of the glacier.

[Sidenote: MORAINES ENGULFED AND DISGORGED.]

Cases occur, wherein moraines, after having been engulfed, and hidden for a time, are again entirely disgorged by the glacier. Two moraines run along the basin of the Talefre, one from the Jardin, the other from an adjacent promontory, proceeding parallel to each other towards the summit of the great ice-fall. Here the ice is riven, and profound chasms are formed, in which the blocks and s.h.i.+ngle of the moraines disappear.

Throughout the entire ice-fall the only trace of the moraines is a broad dirt-streak, which the eye may follow along the centre of the fall, with perhaps here and there a stone which has managed to rise from its frozen sepulchre. But the ice wastes, and at the base of the fall large ma.s.ses of stone begin to reappear; these become more numerous as we descend; the smaller debris also appears, and finally, at some distance below the fall, the moraine is completely restored, and begins to exercise its protecting influence; it rises upon its ridge of ice, and dominates as before over the surface of the glacier.

[Sidenote: TRANSPARENCY OF ICE UNDER THE MORAINES.]

The ice under the moraines and sand-cones is of a different appearance from that of the surrounding glacier, and the principles we have laid down enable us to explain the difference. The sun's rays, striking upon the unprotected surface of the glacier, enter the ice to a considerable depth; and the consequence is, that the ice near the surface of the glacier is always disintegrated, being cut up with minute fissures and cavities, filled with water and air, which, for reasons already a.s.signed, cause the glacier, when it is clean, to appear white and opaque. The ice under the moraines, on the contrary, is usually dark and transparent; I have sometimes seen it as black as pitch, the blackness being a proof of its great transparency, which prevents the reflection of light from its interior.

The ice under the moraines cannot be a.s.sailed in its depths by the solar heat, because this heat becomes _obscure_ before it reaches the ice, and as such it lacks the power of penetrating the substance. It is also communicated in great part by way of contact instead of by radiation. A thin film at the surface of the moraine-ice engages all the heat that acts upon it, its deeper portions remaining intact and transparent.

GLACIER MOTION.

PRELIMINARY.

(9.)

[Sidenote: NeVe AND GLACIER.]

Though a glacier is really composed of two portions, one above and the other below the snow-line, the term glacier is usually restricted to the latter, while the French term _neve_ is applied to the former. It is manifest that the snow which falls upon the glacier proper can contribute nothing to its growth or permanence; for every summer is not only competent to abolish the acc.u.mulations of the foregoing winter, but to do a great deal more. During each summer indeed a considerable quant.i.ty of the ice below the snow-line is reduced to water; so that, if the waste were not in some way supplied, it is manifest that in a few years the lower portion of the glacier must entirely disappear. The end of the Mer de Glace, for example, could never year after year thrust itself into the valley of Chamouni, were there not some agency by which its manifest waste is made good. This agency is the motion of the glacier.

To those unacquainted with the fact of their motion, but who have stood upon these vast acc.u.mulations of ice, and noticed their apparent fixity and rigidity, the a.s.sertion that a glacier moves must appear in the highest degree startling and incredible. They would naturally share the doubts of a certain professor of Tubingen, who, after a visit to the glaciers of Switzerland, went home and wrote a book flatly denying the possibility of their motion. But reflection comes to the aid of sense, and qualifies first impressions. We ask ourselves how is the permanence of the glacier secured? How are the moraines to be accounted for?

Whence come the blocks which we often find at the terminus of a glacier, and which we know belong to distant mountains? The necessity of motion to produce these results becomes more and more apparent, until at length we resort to actual experiment. We take two fixed points at opposite sides of the glacier, so that a block of stone which rests upon the ice may be in the straight line which unites the points; and we soon find that the block quits the line, and is borne downwards by the glacier. We may well realize the interest of the man who first engaged in this experiment, and the pleasure which he felt on finding that the block moved; for even now, after hundreds of observations on the motion of glaciers have been made, the actual observance of this motion for the first time is always accompanied by a thrill of delight. Such pleasure the direct perception of natural truth always imparts. Like Antaeus we touch our mother, and are refreshed by the contact.

[Sidenote: HUGI'S MEASUREMENTS.]

The fact of glacier-motion has been known for an indefinite time to the inhabitants of the mountains; but the first who made quant.i.tative observations of the motion was Hugi. He found that from 1827 to 1830 his cabin upon the glacier of the Aar had moved 100 metres, or about 110 yards, downwards; in 1836 it had moved 714 metres; and in 1841 M.

Aga.s.siz found it at a distance of 1,428 metres from its first position.

This is equivalent in round numbers to an average velocity of 100 metres a year. In 1840 M. Aga.s.siz fixed the position of the rock known as the Hotel des Neufchatelois; and on the 5th of September, 1841, he found that it had moved 213 feet downward. Between this date and September, 1842, the rock moved 273 feet, thus accomplis.h.i.+ng a distance of 486 feet in two years.

But much uncertainty prevailed regarding the motion of the boulders, for they sometimes rolled upon the glacier, and hence it was resolved to use stakes of wood driven into the ice. In the month of July, 1841, M.

Escher de la Linth fixed a system of stakes, every two of which were separated from each other by a distance of 100 metres, across the great Aletsch glacier. A considerable number of other stakes were fixed _along_ the glacier, the longitudinal separation being also 100 metres.

On the 8th of July the stakes stood at a depth of about three feet in the ice. On the 16th of August he returned to the glacier. Almost all the stakes had fallen, and no trace, even of the holes in which they had been sunk, remained. M. Aga.s.siz was equally unsuccessful on the glacier of the Aar. It must therefore be borne in mind, that, previous to the introduction of the facile modes of measurement which we now employ, severe labour and frequent disappointment had taught observers the true conditions of success.

After his defeat upon the Aletsch, M. Escher joined MM. Aga.s.siz and Desor on the Aar glacier, where, between the 31st of August and the 5th of September, they fixed in concert the positions of a series of blocks upon the ice, with the view of measuring their displacements the following year.

[Sidenote: AGa.s.sIZ'S MEASUREMENTS.]

Another observation of great importance was also commenced in 1841.

Warned by previous failures, M. Aga.s.siz had iron boring-rods carried up the glacier, with which he pierced the ice at six places to a depth of ten feet, and at each place drove a wooden pile into the ice. These six stations were in the same straight line across the glacier; three of them standing upon the Finsteraar and three on the Lauteraar tributary.

About this time also M. Aga.s.siz conceived the idea of having the displacements measured the year following with precise instruments, and also of having constructed, by a professional engineer, a map of the entire glacier, on which all its visible "accidents" should be drawn according to scale. This excellent work was afterwards executed by M.

Wild, now Professor of Geodesy and Topography in the Polytechnic School of Zurich, and it is published as a separate atlas in connexion with M.

Aga.s.siz's 'Systeme Glaciaire.'

[Sidenote: PROF. J. D. FORBES INVITED.]

M. Aga.s.siz is a naturalist, and he appears to have devoted but little attention to the study of physics. At all events, the physical portions of his writings appear to me to be very often defective. It was probably his own consciousness of this deficiency that led him to invoke the advice of Arago and others previous to setting out upon his excursions.

It was also his desire "to see a philosopher so justly celebrated occupy himself with the subject," which induced him to invite Prof. J. D.

Forbes of Edinburgh to be his guest upon the Aar glacier in 1841. On the 8th of August they met at the Grimsel Hospice, and for three weeks afterwards they were engaged together daily upon the ice, sharing at night the shelter of the same rude roof. It is in reference to this visit that Prof. Forbes writes thus at page 38 of the 'Travels in the Alps':--"Far from being ready to admit, as my sanguine companions wished me to do in 1841, that the theory of glaciers was complete, and the cause of their motion certain, after patiently hearing all they had to say and reserving my opinion, I drew the conclusion that no theory which I had then heard of could account for the few facts admitted on all hands." In 1842 Prof. Forbes repaired, as early as the state of the snow permitted, to the Mer de Glace; he worked there, in the first instance, for a week, and afterwards crossed over to Courmayeur to witness a solar eclipse. The result of his week's observations was immediately communicated to Prof. Jameson, then editor of the 'Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal.'

[Sidenote: CENTRE MOVES QUICKEST.]

In that letter he announces the fact, but gives no details of the measurement, that "the central part of the glacier moves faster than the edges in a very considerable proportion; quite contrary to the opinion generally entertained." He also announced at the same time the continuous hourly advance of the glacier. This letter bears the date, "Courmayeur, Piedmont, 4th July," but it was not published until the month of October following.

Meanwhile M. Aga.s.siz, in company with M. Wild, returned to complete his experiment upon the glacier of the Aar. On the 20th of July, 1842, the displacements of the six piles which he had planted the year before were determined by means of a theodolite. Of the three upon the Finsteraar affluent, that nearest the side had moved 160 feet, the next 225 feet, while that nearest to the centre had moved 269 feet. Of those on the Lauteraar, that nearest the side had moved 125 feet, the next 210 feet, and that nearest the centre 246 feet. These observations were perfectly conclusive as to the quicker motion of the centre: they embrace a year's motion; and the magnitude of the displacements, causing errors of inches, which might seriously affect small displacements, to vanish, justifies us in ranking this experiment with the most satisfactory of the kind that have ever been made. The results were communicated to Arago in a letter dated from the glacier of the Aar, on the 1st of August, 1842; they were laid before the Academy of Sciences on the 29th of August, 1842, and are published in the 'Comptes Rendus' of the same date.

The facts, then, so far as I have been able to collect them, are as follows:--M. Aga.s.siz commenced his experiment about ten months before Professor Forbes, and the results of his measurements, with quant.i.ties stated, were communicated to the French Academy about two months prior to the publication of the letter of Professor Forbes in the 'Edinburgh Philosophical Journal.' But the latter communication, announcing in general terms the fact of the speedier central motion, was dated from Courmayeur twenty-seven days before the date of M. Aga.s.siz's letter from the glacier of the Aar.

[Sidenote: STATE OF THE QUESTION.]

The speedier motion of the central portion of a glacier has been justly regarded as one of cardinal importance, and no other observation has been the subject of such frequent reference; but the general impression in England is that M. Aga.s.siz had neither part nor lot in the establishment of the above fact; and in no English work with which I am acquainted can I find any reference to the above measurements. Relying indeed upon such sources for my information, I remained ignorant of the existence of the paper in the 'Comptes Rendus' until my attention was directed to it by Professor Wheatstone. In the next following chapters I shall have to state the results of some of my own measurements, and shall afterwards devote a little time to the consideration of the cause of glacier-motion. In treating a question on which so much has been written, it is of course impossible, as it would be undesirable, to avoid subjecting both my own views and those of others to a critical examination. But in so doing I hope that no expression shall escape me inconsistent with the courtesy which ought to be habitual among philosophers or with the frank recognition of the just claims of my predecessors.

MOTION OF THE MER DE GLACE.

(10.)

[Sidenote: MY FIRST OBSERVATION.]

On Tuesday, the 14th of July, 1857, I made my first observation on the motion of the Mer de Glace. Accompanied by Mr. Hirst I selected on the steep slope of the Glacier des Bois a straight pinnacle of ice, the front edge of which was perfectly vertical. In coincidence with this edge I fixed the vertical fibre of the theodolite, and permitted the instrument to stand for three hours. On looking through it at the end of this interval, the cross hairs were found projected against the white side of the pyramid; the whole ma.s.s having moved several inches downwards.

The instrument here mentioned, which had long been in use among engineers and surveyors, was first applied to measure glacier-motion in 1842; by Prof. Forbes on the Mer de Glace, and by M. Aga.s.siz on the glacier of the Aar. The portion of the theodolite made use of is easily understood. The instrument is furnished with a telescope capable of turning up and down upon a pivot, without the slightest deviation right or left; and also capable of turning right or left without the slightest deviation up or down. Within the telescope two pieces of spider's thread, so fine as to be scarcely visible to the naked eye, are drawn across the tube and across each other. When we look through the telescope we see these fibres, their point of intersection being exactly in the centre of the tube; and the instrument is furnished with screws by means of which this point can be fixed upon any desired object with the utmost precision.