The Glaciers of the Alps Part 32

The end of a gla.s.s tube is then dipped into a mixture of rouge and water, and small circles are stamped upon the mud. The two branches are thickly covered with these circles. The sluices being again raised, the mud in the branches moves downwards, carrying with it the circles stamped upon it; and the manner in which these circles are distorted enables us to infer the strains and pressures to which the mud is subjected during its descent. The figure represents approximately what takes place. The side-circles, as might be expected, are squeezed to oblique ovals, but it is at the junction of the branches that the chief effect of pressure is produced. Here, by the mutual thrust of the branches, the circles are not only changed to elongated ellipses, but even squeezed to straight lines. In the case of the glacier this is the region at which the structure receives its main development. To this manifestation of the veins I have applied the term _longitudinal structure_.

The three main sources of the blue veins are, I think, here noted; but besides these there are many local causes which influence their production. I have seen them well formed where a glacier is opposed by the sudden bend of a valley, or by a local promontory which presents an obstacle sufficient to bring the requisite pressure into play. In the glaciers of the Tyrol and of the Oberland I have seen examples of this kind; but the three princ.i.p.al sources of the veins are, I think, those stated above.

[Sidenote: EFFORTS TO SOLVE QUESTION.]

It was long before I cleared my mind of doubt regarding the origin of the lamination. When on the Mer de Glace in 1857 I spared neither risk nor labour to instruct myself regarding it. I explored the Talefre basin, its cascade, and the ice beneath it. Several days were spent amid the ice humps and cliffs at the lower portion of the fall. I suppose I traversed the Glacier du Geant twenty times, and pa.s.sed eight or ten days amid the confusion of its great cascade. I visited those places where, it had been affirmed, the veins were produced. I endeavoured to satisfy myself of the mutability which had been ascribed to them; but a close examination reduced the value of each particular case so much that I quitted the glacier that year with nothing more than an _opinion_ that the structure and the stratification were two different things. I, however, drew up a statement of the facts observed, with the view of presenting it to the Royal Society; but I afterwards felt that in thus acting I should merely swell the literature of the subject without adding anything certain. I therefore withheld the paper, and resolved to devote another year to a search among the chief glaciers of the Oberland, of the Canton Valais, and of Savoy, for proofs which should relieve my mind of all doubt upon the subject.

[Sidenote: EXPEDITION FOR THIS PURPOSE.]

Accordingly in 1858 I visited the glaciers of Rosenlaui, Schwartzwald, Grindelwald, the Aar, the Rhone, and the Aletsch, to the examination of which latter I devoted more than a week. I afterwards went to Zermatt, and, taking up my quarters at the Riffelberg, devoted eleven days to the examination of the great system of glaciers of Monte Rosa. I explored the Gorner Glacier up almost to the Cima de Jazzi; and believed that in it I could trace the structure from portions of the glacier where it vanished, through various stages of perfection, up to its full development. I believe this still; but yet it is nothing but a belief, which the utmost labour that I could bestow did not raise to a certainty. The Western glacier of Monte Rosa, the Schwartze Glacier, the Trifti Glacier, the glacier of the little Mont Cervin, and of St.

Theodule, were all examined in connexion with the great trunk-stream of the Gorner, to which they weld themselves; and though the more I pursued the subject the stronger my conviction became that pressure was the cause of the structure, a crucial case was still wanting.

In the phenomena of slaty cleavage, it is often, if not usually, found that the true cleavage _cuts_ the planes of stratification--sometimes at a very high angle. Had this not been proved by the observations of Sedgwick and others, geologists would not have been able to conclude that cleavage and bedding were two different things, and needed wholly different explanations. My aim, throughout the expedition of 1858, was to discover in the ice a parallel case to the above; to find a clear and undoubted instance where the veins and the stratification were simultaneously exhibited, cutting each other at an unmistakable angle.

On the 6th of August, while engaged with Professor Ramsay upon the Great Aletsch Glacier, not far from its junction with the Middle Aletsch, I observed what appeared to me to be the lines of bedding running nearly horizontal along the wall of a great creva.s.se, while cutting them at a large angle was the true veined structure. I drew my friend's attention to the fact, and to him it appeared perfectly conclusive. It is from a sketch made by him at the place that Fig. 44 has been taken.

[Sidenote: CASE OF STRUCTURE ON THE ALETSCH.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 44. Structure and bedding on the Great Aletsch Glacier.]

This was the only case of the kind which I observed upon the Aletsch Glacier; and as I afterwards spent day after day upon the Monte Rosa glaciers, vainly seeking a similar instance, the thought again haunted me that we might have been mistaken upon the Aletsch. In this state of mind I remained until the 18th of August, a day devoted to the examination of the Furgge Glacier, which lies at the base of the Mont Cervin.

[Sidenote: STRUCTURE OF THE FURGGE GLACIER.]

Crossing the valley of the Gorner Glacier, and taking a plunge as I pa.s.sed into the Schwarze See, I reached, in good time, the object of my day's excursion. Walking up the glacier, I at length found myself opposed by a frozen cascade composed of four high terraces of ice. The highest of these was chiefly composed of ice-cliffs and _seracs_, many of which had fallen, and now stood like rocking-stones upon the edge of the second terrace. The glacier at the base of the cascade was strewn with broken ice, and some blocks two hundred cubic feet in volume had been cast to a considerable distance down the glacier.

Upon the faces of the terraces the stratification of the _neve_ was most beautifully shown, running in parallel and horizontal lines along the weathered surface. The snow-field above the cascade is a frozen plain, smooth almost as a sheltered lake. The successive snow-falls deposit themselves with great regularity, and at the summit of the cascade the sections of the _neve_ are for the first time exposed. Hence their peculiar beauty and definition.

[Sidenote: ICE TERRACE EXAMINED.]

Indeed the figure of a lake pouring itself over a rocky barrier which curves convexly upwards, thus causing the water to fall down it, not only longitudinally over the vertex of the curve, but laterally over its two arms, will convey a tolerably correct conception of the shape of the fall. Towards the centre the ice was powerfully squeezed laterally, the beds were bent, and their continuity often broken by faults. On inspecting the ice from a distance with my opera gla.s.s, I thought I saw structural groovings cutting the strata at almost a right angle. Had the question been an undisputed one, I should perhaps have felt so sure of this as not to incur the danger of pushing the inquiry further; but, under the circ.u.mstances, danger was a secondary point. Resigning, therefore, my gla.s.s to my guide, who was to watch the tottering blocks overhead, and give me warning should they move, I advanced to the base of the fall, removed with my hatchet the weathered surface of the ice, and found underneath it the true veined structure, cutting, at nearly a right angle, the planes of stratification. The superficial groovings were not uniformly distributed over the fall, but appeared most decided at those places where the ice appeared to have been most squeezed. I examined three or four of these places, and in each case found the true veins nearly vertical, while the bedding was horizontal. Having perfectly satisfied myself of these facts, I made a speedy retreat, for the ice-blocks seemed most threatening, and the sunny hour was that at which they fall most frequently.

I next tried the ascent of the glacier up a dislocated declivity to the right. The ice was much riven, but still practicable. My way for a time lay amid fissures which exposed magnificent sections, and every step I took added further demonstration to what I had observed below. The strata were perfectly distinct, the structure equally so, and one crossed the other at an angle of seventy or eighty degrees. Mr. Sorby has adduced a case of the crumpling of a bed of sandstone through which the cleavage pa.s.ses: here on the glacier I had parallel cases; the beds were bent and crumpled, but the structure ran through the ice in sharp straight lines. This perhaps was the most pleasant day I ever spent upon the glaciers: my mind was relieved of a long brooding doubt, and the intellectual freedom thus obtained added a subjective grandeur to the n.o.ble scene before me. Climbing the cliffs near the base of the Matterhorn, I walked along the rocky spine which extends to the Hornli, and afterwards descended by the valley of Zmutt to Zermatt.

A year after my return to England a remark contained in Professor Mousson's interesting little work 'Die Gletscher der Jetzzeit' caused me to refer to the atlas of M. Aga.s.siz's 'Systeme Glaciaire,' from which I learned that this indefatigable observer had figured a case of stratification and structure cutting each other. If, however, I had seen this figure beforehand, it would not have changed my movements; for the case, as sketched, would not have convinced me. I have now no doubt that M. Aga.s.siz has preceded me in this observation, and hence my results are to be taken as mere confirmations of his.

[Sidenote: LAMINATION AND STRATIFICATION.]

Fig. 45 represents a crumpled portion of the ice with the lines of lamination pa.s.sing through the strata. Fig. 46 represents a case where a fault had occurred, the veins at both sides of the line of dislocation being inclined towards each other.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 45. Structure and Stratification on the Furgge glacier.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 46. Structure and Stratification on the Furgge glacier.]

[Figs. 45 and 46 are from sketches made on the Furgge Glacier.--L. C.

T.]

FOOTNOTES:

[A] In reply to a question in connexion with this subject, General Sabine has favoured me with the following note:--

"My dear Tyndall,

"It was in the summer of 1841, at the Lower Grindelwald Glacier, that I first saw, and was greatly impressed and interested by examining and endeavouring to understand (in which I did not succeed), the veined structure of the ice. I do not remember when I mentioned it to Forbes, but it must be before 1843, because it is noticed in his book, p. 29. I had never observed it in the glaciers of Spitzbergen or Baffin's Bay, or in the icebergs of the sh.o.r.es and straits of Davis or Barrow. I feel the more confident of this, because, when I first saw the veined structure in Switzerland, my Arctic experience was more fresh in my recollection, and I recollected nothing like it.

"_Veins_ are indeed not uncommon in icebergs, but they quite resemble veins in rocks, and are formed by water filling fissures and freezing into blue ice, finely contrasted with the white granular substance of the berg.

"The ice of the Grindelwald Glacier (where I examined the veined structure) was broken up into very large ma.s.ses, which by pressure had been upturned, so that a very poor judgment would be formed of the direction of the veins as they existed in the glacier before it had broken up.

"Sincerely yours, "EDWARD SABINE.

"_Feb. 20, 1860_."

[B] In a letter to myself, published in the 17th volume of the 'Philosophical Magazine,' Professor Forbes writes as follows:--"In 1846, then, I abandoned no part of the theory of the veined structure, on which as you say so much labour had been expended, except the admission, always yielded with reluctance, and got rid of with satisfaction, that the congelation of water in the crevices of the glacier may extend in winter to a great depth."

THE VEINED STRUCTURE AND THE DIFFERENTIAL MOTION.

(28.)

[Sidenote: DIFFERENTIAL MOTION GREATEST AT EDGES.]

I have now to examine briefly the explanation of the structure which refers it to differential motion--to a sliding of the particles of ice past each other, which leaves the traces of its existence in the blue veins. The fact is emphatically dwelt upon by those who hold this view, that the structure is best developed nearest to the sides of the glacier, where the differential motion is greatest. Why the differential motion is at its maximum near to the sides is easily understood. Let A B, C D, Fig. 47, represent the two sides of a glacier, moving in the direction of the arrow, and let _m a b c n_ be a straight line of stakes set out across the glacier to-day. Six months hence this line, by the motion of the ice downwards, will be bent to the form _m a' b' c' n_: this curve will not be circular, it will be flattened in the middle; the points _a_ and _c_, at some distance on each side of the centre _b_, move in fact with nearly the same velocity as the centre itself. Not so with the sides:--_a'_ and _c'_ have moved considerably in advance of _m_ and _n_, and hence we say that the difference of motion, or the differential motion, of the particles of ice near to the side is a maximum.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 47. Diagram ill.u.s.trating Differential Motion.]

During all this time the points _m a' b' c' n_ have been moving straight down the glacier; and hence it will be understood that the sliding of the parts past each other, or, in other words, the differential motion, _is parallel to the sides of the glacier_. This, indeed, is the only differential motion that experiment has ever established; and consequently, when we find the best blue veins referred to the sides of the glacier because the differential motion is there greatest, we naturally infer that the motion meant is parallel to the sides.

[Sidenote: STRUCTURE OBLIQUE TO SIDES.]

But the fact is, that this motion would not at all account for the blue veins, for they are not parallel to the sides, but _oblique_ to them.

This difficulty revealed itself after a time to those who first propounded the theory of differential motion, and caused them to modify their explanation of the structure. Differential motion is still a.s.sumed to be the cause of the veins, but now a motion is meant oblique to the sides, and it is supposed to be obtained in the following way:--Through the quicker motion of the point _c'_ the ice between it and _n_ becomes distended; that is to say, the line _c' n_ is in a state of strain--there is a _drag_, it is said, oblique to the sides of the glacier; and it is therefore in this direction that the particles will be caused to slide past each other. Dr. Whewell, who advocates this view, thus expounds it. He supposes the case of an alpine valley filled with india-rubber which has been warmed until it has partially melted, or become viscous, and then asks, "What will now be the condition of the ma.s.s? The sides and bottom will still be held back by the friction; the middle and upper part will slide forwards, but not freely. This want of freedom in the motion (arising from the viscosity) will produce a drag towards the middle of the valley, where the motion is freest; hence the direction in which the filaments slide past each other will be obliquely directed towards the middle. The sliding will separate the ma.s.s according to such lines; and though new attachments will take place, the ma.s.s may be expected to retain the results of this separation in the traces of parallel fissures."[A] Nothing can be clearer than the image of the process thus placed before the mind's eye.

One fact of especial importance is to be borne in mind: the sliding of filaments which is thus supposed to take place oblique to the glacier has never been proved; it is wholly a.s.sumed. A moraine, it is admitted, will run parallel to the side of a glacier, or a block will move in the same direction from beginning to end, without being sensibly drawn towards the centre, but still it is supposed that the sliding of parts exists, though of a character so small as to render it insensible to measurement.

[Sidenote: STRUCTURE CROSSES LINES OF SLIDING.]

My chief difficulty as regards this theory may be expressed in a very few words. If the structure be produced by differential motion, why is the large and _real_ differential motion which experiments have established incompetent to produce it? And how can the veins run, as they are admitted to do, _across the lines of maximum sliding_ from their origin throughout the glacier to its end?

That a drag towards the centre of the glacier exists is undeniable, but that in consequence of the drag there is a sliding of filaments in this direction, is quite another thing. I have in another place[B]

endeavoured to show experimentally that no such sliding takes place, that the drag on any point towards the centre expresses only half the conditions of the problem; being exactly neutralized by the thrust towards the sides. It has been, moreover, shown by Mr. Hopkins that the lines of maximum strain and of maximum sliding cannot coincide; indeed, if all the particles be urged by the same force, no matter how strong the pull may be, there will be no tendency of one to slide past the other.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] 'Philosophical Magazine,' Ser. III., vol. xxvi.