Familiar Talks on Science-World-Building and Life. Earth Part 10

Wright's theory, who studied the formation of these "kettle holes" at the mouth of the Muir glacier. This enthusiastic glacialist has spent many summers tracing the terminal moraine with its fringe along the lines heretofore indicated. He is, therefore, ent.i.tled to speak with authority on matters of glacial action.

The part of the country that has been plowed over by these glaciers is called the glaciated area and the rest the unglaciated. The whole of North America north of the line of the terminal moraine that we have traced is a glacial region, with the exception of a few hundred square miles chiefly in Wisconsin, where the ice seemed to have parted and pa.s.sed around this area, coming together again on the south side of it.

The ice probably did not reach the extreme limit that shows glacial deposit, but undoubtedly the effects of it are seen for some distance to the south, owing to the fact that during the time it was melting great quant.i.ties of water flowed away from the extreme edge of the ice, carrying with it more or less of the glacial drift, which was deposited for some distance to the south. When the ice receded it undoubtedly paused at different points, where it remained stationary for a long period of time. I mean stationary at its edges, for the flow of ice was continually moving, but in its progress southward it came to a point where the heat was sufficient to melt the ice as fast as it arrived at that point. The on-moving ice was continually bringing with it the debris that it had gathered up at different points on its journey, so that it is easy to see how these moraines could acc.u.mulate to a greater or less depth at the margin of the ice flow, which would be determined by the duration of the period it remained stationary. This, however, is only one factor, as the surface of the earth in some parts of the country would be more easily picked up and carried than in others; therefore, the drift acc.u.mulated much more rapidly in some sections than in others.

Another factor that was active in the more rapid acc.u.mulation at certain points was the speed at which the ice moved, and this would be determined by the pressure that was behind it, and there would always be lines of unequal pressure existing in such a great glacier as must have existed when these moraines were formed.

As an instance of the difference in the glacial deposits that are made in different periods during the time of the melting of the great ice sheet we may compare the Kettle Moraines of Wisconsin with the clay deposit mixed with broken gravel that we find along the west coast of Lake Michigan. Those whose homes are situated between Winnetka and Waukegan on the lake sh.o.r.e have the foundations of their houses set in glacial drift that was shoved into position by the ice during the glacial period.

Anyone who makes an examination of the bluffs along the sh.o.r.e of this lake will notice that there is no stratification whatever to the deposit such as will always be found in an unglaciated region. Going west from the bluff a few miles we come down to the prairie level, where we find the soil of an entirely different nature. The soil of the prairies of Illinois and Iowa is probably to a great extent a water deposit. It is the kind we find in the bottom of a pond that has stood for many years, and it would seem that at some period all this prairie country with the black soil was the bottom of a great lake.

The facts of a glacial period are beyond question, but when it occurred, and how it occurred are questions that many have tried to answer. So far, all that we can say of them is that some of them are shrewd guesses. The evidences adduced for determining the time, are the erosion caused by rivers and streams since the ice subsided. Some of the rivers and outlets of lakes had their courses changed by the action of the ice, so that when it subsided new water courses were formed, and the erosion that they have produced from that time to the present furnishes the data for determining the time since the subsidence of the ice at any particular point. For instance, Niagara Falls was undoubtedly at one time situated at Queenstown, a number of miles below its present position. And the time that it has taken to grind out the great gorge that exists between that point and the present falls is approximately a measure of the time that has elapsed since the subsidence of the ice at that point. Various estimates have been made to determinate the rate of erosion. The earlier ones put the time at about 35,000 years. But there are later investigators who make the time much shorter, not over 10,000 years.

So much for the time; but you ask What about the occasion, or cause?

This is a question that many have attempted to answer, there having been eight or ten theories promulgated with regard to the cause of the glacial period, but no one of them is entirely satisfactory, and only two or three of them are deserving of much discussion. It is always interesting to know what people think, however, even if we do not agree with them.

The first theory named is that the glacial period is due to the decrease of the original heat in our climate. This theory can be dismissed by saying that the planet was cooling at the time and has been cooling ever since, and that the reasons for an ice age are greater now than then, on that theory. Another theory a.s.sumes that at some former period there was a greater amount of moisture in the atmosphere; while this of course would be the occasion for greater precipitation of snow, it does not account for the changing conditions that would produce the ice effect.

That there was a preglacial period there is abundant evidence, in buried forests, the filling up and changing of river beds, and other evidences that will be referred to further on. This theory, unmodified and stated broadly, is not satisfactory. Another way of accounting for the glacial period is the change in the distribution of land and water, which is supposed to affect the distribution of heat over the earth's surface.

There is much in this theory that commends itself as plausible. Another theory supposes that the land in northern Europe and America was elevated to a higher level at that time than it is now. Others attribute it to variation of temperature in s.p.a.ce and of the amount of heat radiated by the sun. The final theory for accounting for the ice age is attributed to what is termed the precession of the equinoxes. In short, the precession of the equinoxes means that the division between summer and winter is changing gradually, so that during a period of 10,500 years the summers are growing longer in the northern hemisphere and the winters shorter. We are now in the period of long summers, but in another 10,000 years we shall be in the period of short summers and long winters. This difference of time between the winters and the summers is supposed to be sufficient to change the thermal conditions sufficiently to produce an ice age.

It is true that the conditions now are very evenly balanced, so much so that in Switzerland the glaciers will increase for some years together, when the conditions will change, causing them to gradually recede.

Several of the theories that have been advanced present evidences that are ent.i.tled to careful consideration, but none of them can be said to be entirely satisfactory. It is well known that the chief factors in the production of glaciers are moisture and cold. Cold alone is not sufficient; neither is moisture, unless we can precipitate it in the form of snow. Cold is opposed to the production of moisture, and this is a flaw in the argument presented by the last theory, unless we can couple with it another set of conditions which we will discuss later.

The solution, if it is ever reached, is perhaps more likely to be found in the realm of meteorology than geology.

It is unnecessary to change the conditions of temperature or the amount of moisture now existing in order to produce the great glacier again, provided this moisture could be precipitated, enough of it, in the right place as snow. For instance, if in Switzerland, where the conditions are nearly balanced, the annual precipitation could be slightly increased we should have a condition that would precipitate more snow in winter than would melt in summer. And the glaciers would gradually acc.u.mulate in size until they would fill the valleys and gorges to the same extent as formerly prevailed. There only needs to be such a change in the meteorological conditions as will cause a greater precipitation in that part of the globe favorable to glaciers, as, for instance, in the northern part of North America toward Alaska. This might be produced by a change in the conditions of the equatorial current, so that evaporation would be more rapid in the northern Pacific than it now is.

When we consider that evaporation increases in proportion as the heat increases, we can see that heat is just as important a factor in the production of glaciers as cold. If evaporation could be increased in the Pacific Ocean west of Alaska, which would be carried by the wind over the mountains upon the land, and precipitated as snow, the great glaciers in that region would begin to grow instead of gradually receding, as is the case at present, and this without any change in the temperature of the world as a whole or in the amount of heat received from the sun. One can readily see how changes in the elevation of the bottom of the ocean would have such an effect upon the tropical stream as would either increase or decrease the temperature of the thermal river that flows up the western coast of Alaska.

Whatever may have been the cause that created the great ice age in North America, so that a sheet of ice covered considerably more than half of the continent, there is no doubt in regard to the fact of the existence of such an age, and it will be interesting to study some of the physical changes that have been made by the ice at that period on the surface of the glaciated area.

CHAPTER XXVII.

GLACIAL AND PREGLACIAL LAKES AND RIVERS.

Since the recession of the ice, preglacial lakes have been filled up and are now dry land, and river beds have been changed so that new channels have been cut and new lakes have been formed. Even the imagination, that wonderful architect, with all its tendencies to exaggeration, palls in its attempt to give expression in measured quant.i.ties to the mighty power exerted by the great glacier or combination of glaciers that existed in comparatively recent times. I say recent times, because even 10,000 years is only a mere point of time when compared with the actual age of our globe.

Some years ago, in company with Dr. Wright, author of the "Ice Age in North America," I visited Devil's Lake near Baraboo, Wis. At this point are striking evidences of the work of the ice age. Before the glacial period the Wisconsin River made a detour some miles west of its present channel through the high hills in the region of Baraboo. The hills on each side of Devil's Lake are very precipitous and are formed almost entirely of rocks. The river at that point pa.s.sed between two of these hills. When the ice flowed down it surrounded these hills, yet did not sweep over their tops, but left great piles of glacial drift, both at the points where the river channel entered the hills and where it emerges from them. The channel between the hills was protected and not filled with the debris. Therefore a deep basin was left, which is kept filled by the watershed furnished by the surrounding hills. This lake recedes many feet during the summer, but it is again filled up by the rains and snows of winter. There is no considerable stream either flowing into or out from it. It is a lake formed by the glaciers, but in a different way from those in the gravel deposits at other parts of southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois.

There are hundreds and perhaps thousands of lakes that have been formed in one way or another through the power of glacial action. These smaller inland lakes, so many of which are seen in northern Illinois, southern Wisconsin, and Minnesota, are due almost entirely to the great deposits of glacial drift that have been transported with the ice. Wherever these "kettle holes" are found large bodies of ice have become anch.o.r.ed, while the ice behind it has carried the drift until it is covered over and piled up at the sides. When these ice mountains melted away depressions were left which in some cases have resulted in lakes, and in others simply dry kettle holes. This process has been hinted at in a former chapter, but we give it here as one of the kinds of lakes formed during the glacial period. They are found everywhere that glacial action has prevailed. They are found in great abundance in some parts of New England on the margin of the terminal moraine. These lakes, however, are comparatively insignificant as compared with the great inland seas like Lake Superior and Lake Michigan, that undoubtedly owe their origin largely to the ice age.

There are other factors, however, that enter into the formation of the great chain of lakes on the northern boundary of the United States besides those mentioned, that have brought into existence the smaller inland lakes.

Glacial lakes may be divided into three cla.s.ses. Those found in the "kettle holes" of the terminal or medial moraines, and those that are formed by the deposition of the glacial drift, as, for instance, Devil's Lake, and those that are caused by ice forming dams across the valley of a river that lasted only during the ice age. In some lakes of the second cla.s.s erosion undoubtedly entered into their formation as well as the piling up of glacial drift.

In order, however, that we may understand more fully the formation of these greater lakes it will be necessary for us to go back and examine the conditions that seem to have existed before the glacial period.

It is a fact well known that continents have periods of elevation and depression. There is abundant evidence that the northern portion of the North American continent was elevated to a much higher level in preglacial times than it occupies now. This is evidenced in very many ways by sounding the depths of old river beds now filled with glacial debris. The old beds show unmistakable evidences of having been worn down to their present level by the action of running water. They also prove to be many feet below the present sea-level. This fact seems to be sufficient to prove the theory of a higher elevation of the North American continent in preglacial times. It should be said here that undoubtedly the constant filling up of the ocean with the drift carried down by the rivers has somewhat raised its level, but hardly to the extent indicated by the old river beds. The question naturally arises, Where did all the dirt come from to fill up these great river beds and change the whole topography of the northern half of the continent? Dr.

Wright estimates that there is not less than 1,000,000 square miles of territory in North America covered with glacial debris to an average depth of 50 feet. Of course, the depth varies in different places from a few inches to several hundred feet. Of the carrying power of these great glaciers we will speak more fully in a future chapter. In preglacial times the watershed of the Mississippi and of the great rivers east of the Alleghany Mountains, the Susquehanna and Hudson, extended probably farther north than it does to-day. The larger portion of the drainage area that now finds an outlet through the River St. Lawrence at one time undoubtedly drained off through the Mississippi Valley into the Gulf and the Valley of the Mohawk into that of the Hudson.

It is supposed by those who have made this branch of geology a study that prior to the glacial period a river flowed down through Lake Superior, which connected with Lake Michigan at a point near its present outlet at Sault Ste. Marie, the channel of the river pa.s.sing down through what is now the bottom of Lake Michigan, which had an outlet at the head of the lake near Chicago and flowed off into the Mississippi River. All of the lake bottoms of this great chain, with the exception of Lake Erie, are now below sea-level. The reason for this exception will appear further on. Before the ice age there was supposed to be no connection between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, as there is now, through the Straits of Mackinac.

Another preglacial river had its rise in the region of Lake Huron and flowed through an old river bed extending from the Georgian Bay in a southeasterly direction through the province of Ontario, and emptied into the present Lake Ontario. From Lake Ontario there is an old river bed running through the Valley of the Mohawk which empties into the Hudson at Troy. Neither of these two rivers, having their sources in the north, found an outlet through the present St. Lawrence River. During the time of the glacial period there is evidence that there was more than one center of snow and ice acc.u.mulation and each of these great centers probably had several subcenters. This theory has color given to it by the directions of movement shown by the glacial drift.

The rounded appearance of bowlders was caused by the grinding action of the ice. These bowlders, when they were first torn from their rocky beds by the irresistible power of ice pressure, were rough and jagged in shape, the same as any rock would be, torn from a quarry by a blast.

They have been smoothed and rounded by rubbing against the moving ice and against each other in the progress of their long journey from their original homes. Where their home was the geologist can immediately tell upon examination. It is only necessary then to examine the bowlders of any particular locality to determine the direction of the ice flow at that point.

There seem to have existed centers of ice acc.u.mulation to the north of all of the great lakes. And when they had grown to a sufficient height they joined at their edges, making one grand glacier, the movements of which were the resultant of the combined pressure exerted by these great centers of power, so that all of North America north of the line of the terminal moraine, with the exception of a small area (heretofore noted) chiefly in Wisconsin, became covered with one vast sheet of ice.

The glacier north of Lake Superior widened out the old river bed by a process of erosion to its present width.

There may have existed something of a lake in preglacial times, through which the river ran, but it undoubtedly owes its present width to the grinding action of the irresistible icebergs and the piling up of debris on the sh.o.r.es. The river bed was filled up by a glacial drift at the point of its present outlet until the lake was raised in its level much higher than that of Lake Michigan. Another glacier plowed down through Lake Michigan, widening it out to its present dimensions, while the glacial drift was deposited at what is now the head of the lake, filling up the old outlet and thus making a great dam. The damming up of these great water courses was another cause for increasing the width of these lakes. In a similar way Lake Erie was formed. It is supposed, however, that this lake is entirely the product of glacial action, as there is no evidence of an old river bed in its bottom; besides, it is much shallower than the other lakes. The same action that formed Lake Erie filled up the old river bed running through the province of Ontario, so that when the ice receded Lake Erie became the new channel for the old river. The same process filled up the Valley of the Mohawk to more than 100 feet in depth and also raised the Valley of the Hudson. This caused the new channel to be made through the Niagara River and a new route to the ocean for the drainage of all the chain of lakes through the St.

Lawrence. It will be seen that the bottoms of all of these great lakes to a certain extent were worn out by the action of running water, except Erie. The great glaciers widened them out, and in the case of Lake Erie scooped it out. At the same time it built great dams across the outlets which raised the surface of the water to a much higher level and caused them to form new outlets, thus changing the whole face of the country over which the ice drifted.

The glaciated region of North America is among the most productive in the world, and in many respects presents a most pleasing landscape.

Other lakes besides these mentioned have been formed during the ice period through blocking the course of a river by the ice itself. Dr.

Wright, during the time he traced out the line of the terminal moraine, discovered that the ice sheet crossed the Ohio River at a point near Cincinnati, where there is a great bend to the northward in the river.

With the exception of this point and perhaps another point below, the edge of the great ice sheet kept a little north of the Ohio River. At this point, however, the ice seems to have filled the valley from hill to hill, which very naturally would form a great dam or lake in the Ohio Valley. Of course such a lake could not be permanent, because, when the ice melted away, it again opened the channel and allowed the water to flow off.

Some years before this discovery was made there were terraces found along the banks of the Ohio River and its tributaries that had been the subject of much speculation. It is well known that by the action of water from rainfall, earth, gravel, and other debris will wash down the side of a hill or mountain until it strikes a water level, and there it will build out a terrace near the level of the water surface. The width of these terraces will be determined by the time the water has stood at that level and the extent and nature of the soil from which the debris comes. The evidences that are cited, pro and con, would fill a small volume, but it is sufficient to say here that the sum of the evidence goes to show that there was an ice dam formed at a point near Cincinnati and that it was maintained for a considerable period of time. Terraces were formed running up the Ohio and its tributaries corresponding to the level that the water must have risen to if the valley were filled up with ice. These facts, taken with the greater fact that the ice sheet actually did cross the Ohio Valley into Kentucky, as is shown by the terminal moraine, seems to prove conclusively the existence of such a lake during the period that the ice rested at its extreme limit. The fact that in some places successive terraces are found does not disprove the theory, because it is more than likely that when the ice receded it did so in successive stages, remaining at different positions for a considerable length of time. There is abundant proof of this in the successive moraines and also in the formation of successive terraces.

Some of these terraces could have been formed from other causes.

It does not require any great stretch of the imagination to understand how numerous lakes, much larger than any at the present day, may have extended over large portions of the West and Northwest during the period that the ice was receding. The ice did not stand with an even thickness over the surface of the glaciated area, but at some points it moved down in great lobes, which marked the lines of greatest pressure as well as the greatest acc.u.mulation. As the ice melted away, the thick bodies of ice might be many, many years in melting, and they might block the outlet to a very extensive drainage area and thus form a great inland sea from the vast amounts of water that would come from the melting ice.

All of the region about Winnipeg, in the Red River country, covering great areas of hundreds of miles in extent, is a level plain only lacking the coloring to give to one pa.s.sing through it the effect of a great unruffled sea. There is no doubt but that all of this region was the bottom of a great lake at some period when the ice was receding. And this accounts for the great depth of black soil that we find in this and other regions. The soil was a water deposit, such as may be found in the bottom of any shallow lake or pond to-day, and thus many thousand years ago provision was made for the fertile areas which to-day are feeding the world with wheat.

We can imagine that during this period the water that flowed off through the great Mississippi must have been of enormous volume as compared to the present time. A large portion of the delta of the Mississippi which now is a part of the States of Louisiana and Mississippi was carried down during the ice-melting period. Dr.

Wright--as we have before stated--has estimated that there are a million square miles of country that has been covered to an average depth of fifty feet with glacial drift. A very large amount of the earth that was spread over the northern portion of the United States by leveling down hills and mountains in the northern country and scooping out the great lakes has been carried much farther than to the margin of the ice sheet.

And I have no doubt but that a great portion of Louisiana and western Mississippi is made of earth carried down largely during the period of melting ice and deposited in this great delta.

Imagine the effect that would be produced by the giving way of an ice dam or a great number of them at different periods, that would allow a body of water as large or larger than Lake Michigan to be drained off in a comparatively short time. When we think of it in this light the great delta of the Mississippi is easily accounted for.

There are evidences of a great lake in the Red River country of the Northwest that is much larger than any of our greatest lakes. The sh.o.r.es of this lake--the bed of which is now dry land and the heart of a great agricultural region--are well defined and have been surveyed and mapped out. When this great body of water was released it was to the northward. For this reason it was undoubtedly held for a much longer time than some of the lakes to the southward where the ice melted sooner.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

SOME EFFECTS OF THE GLACIAL PERIOD.

There is a wonderfully interesting effect produced by the action of water during the subsidence of a glacier at Lucerne, Switzerland. Some years ago there was discovered under a pile of glacial drift at the edge of the town of Lucerne a number of deep holes worn in a great ledge of rocks that crop out at that point. One of these pot-holes having been discovered, excavations were continued until a large number of them were unearthed of various shapes and sizes. I had the pleasure of inspecting some of them in the year 1881. They are situated within an inclosure called the Garden of the Glaciers. Some of these holes are twenty to thirty feet in diameter, and the same depth. There are others that are smaller in size, but all of them possess the same general characteristics.

In the bottom of each one was found a bowlder, and in one or two cases two of them. The action of the water had given these bowlders a gyratory motion, which gradually wore away the rock underneath until round holes were formed to the size and depth heretofore mentioned. Where there was only a single bowlder the holes were almost perfectly round, but where there was more than one bowlder the holes were sometimes in an oblong shape. The bowlders were worn down to a very small size in most cases, and were round and smooth. The probabilities are that when the action first began these bowlders were large and of irregular shape. They must have been, in order to do the enormous amount of grinding that some of them did to produce excavations in the solid rock with a diameter of thirty feet and a depth about the same. The bottoms were round like an old-fashioned pot, and the insides polished perfectly smooth. This was purely an effect of the tumbling about of the bowlders by the running water from the melting ice of the great glacier that covered that region some time in the long ago.