The Glaciers of the Alps Part 35

[Sidenote: COMPRESSION OF GLACIER DU GeANT.]

Not only at the base of its great cascade, but throughout the greater part of its length, the Glacier du Geant is in a state of longitudinal compression. The meaning of this term will be readily understood: Let two points, for example, be marked upon the axis of the glacier; if these during its descent were drawn wider apart, it would show that the glacier was in a state of longitudinal strain or tension; if they remained at the same distance apart, it would indicate that neither strain nor pressure was exerted; whereas, if the two points approached each other, which could only be by the quicker motion of the hinder one, the existence of longitudinal compression would be thereby demonstrated.

Taking "Le Pet.i.t Balmat" with me, to carry my theodolite, I ascended the Glacier du Geant until I came near the place where it is joined by the Glacier des Periades, and whence I observed a patch of fresh green gra.s.s upon the otherwise rocky mountain-side. To this point I climbed, and made it the station for my instrument. Choosing a well-defined object at the opposite side of the glacier, I set, on the 9th of August, in the line between this object and the theodolite, three stakes, one in the centre of the glacier, and the other two at opposite sides of the centre and about 100 yards from it. This done, I descended for a quarter of a mile, when I again climbed the flanking rocks, placing my theodolite in a couloir, down which stones are frequently discharged from the end of a secondary glacier which hangs upon the heights above. Here, as before, I fixed three stakes, chiselled a mark upon the granite, so as to enable me to find the place, and regained the ice without accident. A day or two previously we had set out a third line at some distance lower down, and I was thus furnished with a succession of points along the glacier, the relative motions of which would decide whether it was _pressed_ or _stretched_ in the direction of its length. On the 10th of August Mr.

Huxley joined us; and on the following day we all set out for the Glacier du Geant, to measure the progress of the stakes which I had fixed there. Hirst remained upon the glacier to measure the displacements; I shouldered the theodolite; and Huxley was my guide to the mountain-side, sounding in advance of me the treacherous-looking snow over which we had to pa.s.s.

Calling the central stake of the highest line No. 1, that of the middle line No. 2, and that of the line nearest the Tacul No. 3, the following are the s.p.a.ces moved over by these three points in twenty-four hours:

Inches. Distances asunder.

No. 1 20.55 } 545 yards.

No. 2 15.43 } 487 yards.

No. 3 12.75

Here we have the fact which the aspect of the glacier suggested. The first stake moves five inches a day more than the second, and the second nearly three inches a day more than the third. As surmised, therefore, the glacier is in a state of longitudinal compression, whereby a portion of it 1000 yards in length is shortened at the rate of eight inches a day.

[Sidenote: STRUCTURE IN WHITE ICE-SEAMS.]

In accordance with this result, the transverse undulations of the Glacier du Geant, described in the chapter upon Dirt-Bands, _shorten_ as they descend. A series of three of them measured along the axis of the glacier on the 6th of August, 1857, gave the following respective lengths:--955 links, 855 links, 770 links, the shortest undulation being the farthest from the origin of the undulations. This glacier then const.i.tutes a vast ice-press, and enables us to test the explanation which refers the veined structure of the ice to pressure. The glacier itself is transversely laminated, as already stated; and in many cases a structure of extreme definition and beauty is developed in the compressed snow, which const.i.tutes the seams of white ice. In 1857 I discovered a well-developed lenticular structure in some of these seams.

In 1858 I again examined them. Clearing away the superficial portions with my axe, I found, drawn through the body of the seams, long lines of blue ice of exquisite definition; in fact, I had never seen the structure so delicately exhibited. The seams, moreover, were developed in portions of the white ice which were near the _centre_ of the glacier, and where consequently filamentous sliding was entirely out of the question.

[Sidenote: PARTIAL SUMMARY.]

PARTIAL SUMMARY.

1. Glaciers are derived from mountain snow, which has been consolidated to ice by pressure.

2. That pressure is competent to convert snow into ice has been proved by experiment.

3. The power of yielding to pressure diminishes as the ma.s.s becomes more compact; but it does not cease even when the substance has attained the compactness which would ent.i.tle it to be called ice.

4. When a sufficient depth of snow collects upon the earth's surface, the lower portions are squeezed out by the pressure of the superinc.u.mbent ma.s.s. If it rests upon a slope it will yield princ.i.p.ally in the direction of the slope, and move downwards.

5. In addition to this, the whole ma.s.s slides bodily along its inclined bed, and leaves the traces of its sliding on the rocks over which it pa.s.ses, grinding off their asperities, and marking them with grooves and scratches in the direction of the motion.

6. In this way the deposit of consolidated and unconsolidated snow which covers the higher portions of lofty mountains moves slowly down into an adjacent valley, through which it descends as a true glacier, partly by sliding and partly by the yielding of the ma.s.s itself.

7. Several valleys thus filled may unite in a single valley, the tributary glaciers welding themselves together to form a trunk-glacier.

8. Both the main valley and its tributaries are often sinuous, and the tributaries must change their direction to form the trunk; the width of the valley often varies. The glacier is forced through narrow gorges, widening after it has pa.s.sed them; the centre of the glacier moves more quickly than the sides, and the surface more quickly than the bottom; the point of swiftest motion follows the same law as that observed in the flow of rivers, s.h.i.+fting from one side of the centre to the other as the flexure of the valley changes.

9. These various effects may be reproduced by experiments on small ma.s.ses of ice. The substance may moreover be moulded into vases and statuettes. Straight bars of it may be bent into rings, or even coiled into knots.

10. Ice, capable of being thus moulded, is practically incapable of being stretched. The condition essential to success is that the particles of the ice operated on shall be kept in close contact, so that when old attachments have been severed new ones may be established.

11. The nearer the ice is to its melting point in temperature, the more easily are the above results obtained; when ice is many degrees below its freezing point it is crushed by pressure to a white powder, and is not capable of being moulded as above.

12. Two pieces of ice at 32 Fahr., with moist surfaces, when placed in contact freeze together to a rigid ma.s.s; this is called Regelation.

13. When the attachments of pressed ice are broken, the continuity of the ma.s.s is restored by the regelation of the new contiguous surfaces.

Regelation also enables two tributary glaciers to weld themselves to form a continuous trunk; thus also the creva.s.ses are mended, and the dislocations of the glacier consequent on descending cascades are repaired. This healing of ruptures extends to the smallest particles of the ma.s.s, and it enables us to account for the continued compactness of the ice during the descent of the glacier.

14. The quality of viscosity is practically absent in glacier-ice. Where pressure comes into play the phenomena are suggestive of viscosity, but where tension comes into play the a.n.a.logy with a viscous body breaks down. When subjected to strain the glacier does not yield by stretching, but by breaking; this is the origin of the creva.s.ses.

15. The creva.s.ses are produced by the mechanical strains to which the glacier is subjected. They are divided into marginal, transverse, and longitudinal creva.s.ses; the first produced by the oblique strain consequent on the quicker motion of the centre; the second by the pa.s.sage of the glacier over the summit of an incline; the third by pressure from behind and resistance in front, which causes the ma.s.s to split at right angles to the pressure [strain?].

16. The moulins are formed by deep cracks intersecting glacier rivulets.

The water in descending such cracks scoops out for itself a shaft, sometimes many feet wide, and some hundreds of feet deep, into which the cataract plunges with a sound like thunder. The supply of water is periodically cut off from the moulins by fresh cracks, in which new moulins are formed.

17. The lateral moraines are formed from the debris which loads the glacier along its edges; the medial moraines are formed on a trunk-glacier by the union of the lateral moraines of its tributaries; the terminal moraines are formed from the debris carried by the glacier to its terminus, and there deposited. The number of medial moraines on a trunk glacier is always one less than the number of tributaries.

18. When ordinary lake-ice is intersected by a strong sunbeam it liquefies so as to form flower-shaped figures within the ma.s.s; each flower consists of six petals with a vacuous s.p.a.ce at the centre; the flowers are always formed parallel to the planes of freezing, and depend on the crystallization of the substance.

19. Innumerable liquid disks, with vacuous spots, are also formed by the solar beams in glacier-ice. These empty s.p.a.ces have been hitherto mistaken for air-bubbles, the flat form of the disks being erroneously regarded as the result of pressure.

20. These disks are indicators of the intimate const.i.tution of glacier-ice, and they teach us that it is composed of an aggregate of parts with surfaces of crystallization in all possible planes.

21. There are also innumerable small cells in glacier-ice holding air and water; such cells also occur in lake-ice; and here they are due to the melting of the ice in contact with the bubble of air. Experiments are needed on glacier-ice in reference to this point.

22. At a free surface within or without, ice melts with more ease than in the centre of a compact ma.s.s. The motion which we call heat is less controlled at a free surface, and it liberates the molecules from the solid condition sooner than when the atoms are surrounded on all sides by other atoms which impede the molecular motion. Regelation is the complementary effect to the above; for here the superficial portions of a ma.s.s of ice are made virtually central by the contact of a second ma.s.s.

23. The dirt-bands have their origin in the ice-cascades. The glacier, in pa.s.sing the brow, is transversely fractured; ridges are formed with hollows between them; these transverse hollows are the princ.i.p.al receptacles of the fine debris scattered over the glacier; and after the ridges have been melted away, the dirt remains in successive stripes upon the glacier.

24. The ice of many glaciers is laminated, and when weathered may be cloven into thin plates. In the sound ice the lamination manifests itself in blue stripes drawn through the general whitish ma.s.s of the glacier; these blue veins representing portions of ice from which the air-bubbles have been more completely expelled. This is the veined structure of the ice. It is divided into marginal, transverse, and longitudinal structure; which may be regarded as complementary to marginal, longitudinal, and transverse creva.s.ses. The latter are produced by tension, the former by pressure, which acts in two different ways: firstly, the pressure acts upon the ice as it has acted upon rocks which exhibit the lamination technically called cleavage; secondly, it produces partial liquefaction of the ice. The liquid s.p.a.ces thus formed help the escape of the air from the glacier; and the water produced, being refrozen when the pressure is relieved, helps to form the blue veins.

APPENDIX.

COMPARATIVE VIEW OF THE CLEAVAGE OF CRYSTALS AND SLATE-ROCKS.

A LECTURE DELIVERED AT THE ROYAL INSt.i.tUTION, ON FRIDAY EVENING THE 6TH OF JUNE, 1856.[A]

When the student of physical science has to investigate the character of any natural force, his first care must be to purify it from the mixture of other forces, and thus study its simple action. If, for example, he wishes to know how a ma.s.s of water would shape itself, supposing it to be at liberty to follow the bent of its own molecular forces, he must see that these forces have free and undisturbed exercise. We might perhaps refer him to the dew-drop for a solution of the question; but here we have to do, not only with the action of the molecules of the liquid upon each other, but also with the action of gravity upon the ma.s.s, which pulls the drop downwards and elongates it. If he would examine the problem in its purity, he must do as Plateau has done, withdraw the liquid ma.s.s from the action of gravity, and he would then find the shape of the ma.s.s to be perfectly spherical. Natural processes come to us in a mixed manner, and to the uninstructed mind are a ma.s.s of unintelligible confusion. Suppose half-a-dozen of the best musical performers to be placed in the same room, each playing his own instrument to perfection: though each individual instrument might be a well-spring of melody, still the mixture of all would produce mere noise. Thus it is with the processes of nature. In nature, mechanical and molecular laws mingle, and create apparent confusion. Their mixture const.i.tutes what may be called the _noise_ of natural laws, and it is the vocation of the man of science to resolve this noise into its components, and thus to detect the "music" in which the foundations of nature are laid.

The necessity of this detachment of one force from all other forces is nowhere more strikingly exhibited than in the phenomena of crystallization. I have here a solution of sulphate of soda. Prolonging the mental vision beyond the boundaries of sense, we see the atoms of that liquid, like squadrons under the eye of an experienced general, arranging themselves into battalions, gathering round a central standard, and forming themselves into solid ma.s.ses, which after a time a.s.sume the visible shape of the crystal which I here hold in my hand. I may, like an ignorant meddler wis.h.i.+ng to hasten matters, introduce confusion into this order. I do so by plunging this gla.s.s rod into the vessel. The consequent action is not the pure expression of the crystalline forces; the atoms rush together with the confusion of an unorganized mob, and not with the steady accuracy of a disciplined host.

Here, also, in this ma.s.s of bis.m.u.th we have an example of this confused crystallization; but in the crucible behind me a slower process is going on: here there is an architect at work "who makes no chips, no din," and who is now building the particles into crystals, similar in shape and structure to those beautiful ma.s.ses which we see upon the table. By permitting alum to crystallize in this slow way, we obtain these perfect octahedrons; by allowing carbonate of lime to crystallize, nature produces these beautiful rhomboids; when silica crystallizes, we have formed these hexagonal prisms capped at the ends by pyramids; by allowing saltpetre to crystallize, we have these prismatic ma.s.ses; and when carbon crystallizes, we have the diamond. If we wish to obtain a perfect crystal, we must allow the molecular forces free play: if the crystallizing ma.s.s be permitted to rest upon a surface it will be flattened, and to prevent this a small crystal must be so suspended as to be surrounded on all sides by the liquid, or, if it rest upon the surface, it must be turned daily so as to present all its faces in succession to the working builder. In this way the scientific man nurses these children of his intellect, watches over them with a care worthy of imitation, keeps all influences away which might possibly invade the strict morality of crystalline laws, and finally sees them developed into forms of symmetry and beauty which richly reward the care bestowed upon them.

In building up crystals, these little atomic bricks often arrange themselves into layers which are perfectly parallel to each other, and which can be separated by mechanical means; this is called the cleavage of the crystal. I have here a crystallized ma.s.s which has thus far escaped the abrading and disintegrating forces which, sooner or later, determine the fate of sugar-candy. If I am skilful enough, I shall discover that this crystal of sugar cleaves with peculiar facility in one direction. Here, again, I have a ma.s.s of rock-salt: I lay my knife upon it, and with a blow cleave it in this direction; but I find on further examining this substance that it cleaves in more directions than one. Laying my knife at right angles to its former position, the crystal cleaves again; and, finally placing the knife at right angles to the two former positions, the ma.s.s cleaves again. Thus rock-salt cleaves in three directions, and the resulting solid is this perfect cube, which may be broken up into any number of smaller cubes. Here is a ma.s.s of Iceland spar, which also cleaves in three directions, not at right angles, but obliquely to each other, the resulting solid being a rhomboid. In each of these cases the ma.s.s cleaves with equal facility in all three directions. For the sake of completeness, I may say that many substances cleave with unequal facility in different directions, and the heavy spar I hold in my hand presents an example of this kind of cleavage.

Turn we now to the consideration of some other phenomena to which the term cleavage may be applied. This piece of beech-wood cleaves with facility parallel to the fibre, and if our experiments were fine enough we should discover that the cleavage is most perfect when the edge of the axe is laid across the rings which mark the growth of the tree. The fibres of the wood lie side by side, and a comparatively small force is sufficient to separate them. If you look at this ma.s.s of hay severed from a rick, you will see a sort of cleavage developed in it also; the stalks lie in parallel planes, and only a small force is required to separate them laterally. But we cannot regard the cleavage of the tree as the same in character as the cleavage of the hayrick. In the one case it is the atoms arranging themselves according to organic laws which produce a cleavable structure; in the other case the easy separation in a certain direction is due to the mechanical arrangement of the coa.r.s.e sensible ma.s.ses of stalks of hay.