The Glaciers of the Alps Part 36

In like manner I find that this piece of sandstone cleaves parallel to the planes of bedding. This rock was once a powder, more or less coa.r.s.e, held in mechanical suspension by water. The powder was composed of two distinct parts, fine grains of sand and small plates of mica. Imagine a wide strand covered by a tide which holds such powder in suspension:[B]

how will it sink? The rounded grains of sand will reach the bottom first, the mica afterwards, and when the tide recedes we have the little plates shining like spangles upon the surface of the sand. Each successive tide brings its charge of mixed powder, deposits its duplex layer day after day, and finally ma.s.ses of immense thickness are thus piled up, which, by preserving the alternations of sand and mica, tell the tale of their formation. I do not wish you to accept this without proof. Take the sand and mica, mix them together in water, and allow them to subside, they will arrange themselves in the manner I have indicated; and by repeating the process you can actually build up a sandstone ma.s.s which shall be the exact counterpart of that presented by nature, as I have done in this gla.s.s jar. Now this structure cleaves with readiness along the planes in which the particles of mica are strewn. Here is a ma.s.s of such a rock sent to me from Halifax: here are other ma.s.ses from the quarries of Over Darwen in Lancashire. With a hammer and chisel you see I can cleave them into flags; indeed these flags are made use of for roofing purposes in the districts from which the specimens have come, and receive the name of "slate-stone." But you will discern, without a word from me, that this cleavage is not a crystalline cleavage any more than that of a hayrick is. It is not an arrangement produced by molecular forces; indeed it would be just as reasonable to suppose that in this jar of sand and mica the particles arranged themselves into layers by the forces of crystallization, instead of by the simple force of gravity, as to imagine that such a cleavage as this could be the product of crystallization.

This, so far as I am aware of, has never been imagined, and it has been agreed among geologists not to call such splitting as this cleavage at all, but to restrict the term to a cla.s.s of phenomena which I shall now proceed to consider.

Those who have visited the slate quarries of c.u.mberland and North Wales will have witnessed the phenomena to which I refer. We have long drawn our supply of roofing-slates from such quarries; schoolboys ciphered on these slates, they were used for tombstones in churchyards, and for billiard-tables in the metropolis; but not until a comparatively late period did men begin to inquire how their wonderful structure was produced. What is the agency which enables us to split Honister Crag, or the cliffs of Snowdon, into laminae from crown to base? This question is at the present moment one of the greatest difficulties of geologists, and occupies their attention perhaps more than any other. You may wonder at this. Looking into the quarry of Penrhyn, you may be disposed to explain the question as I heard it explained two years ago. "These planes of cleavage," said a friend who stood beside me on the quarry's edge, "are the planes of stratification which have been lifted by some convulsion into an almost vertical position." But this was a great mistake, and indeed here lies the grand difficulty of the problem. These planes of cleavage stand in most cases at a high angle to the bedding.

Thanks to Sir Roderick Murchison, who has kindly permitted me the use of specimens from the Museum of Practical Geology (and here I may be permitted to express my acknowledgments to the distinguished staff of that n.o.ble establishment, who, instead of considering me an intruder, have welcomed me as a brother), I am able to place the proof of this before you. Here is a ma.s.s of slate in which the planes of bedding are distinctly marked; here are the planes of cleavage, and you see that one of them makes a large angle with the other. The cleavage of slates is therefore not a question of stratification, and the problem which we have now to consider is, "By what cause has this cleavage been produced?"

In an able and elaborate essay on this subject in 1835, Professor Sedgwick proposed the theory that cleavage is produced by the action of crystalline or polar forces after the ma.s.s has been consolidated. "We may affirm," he says, "that no retreat of the parts, no contraction of dimensions in pa.s.sing to a solid state can explain such phenomena. They appear to me only resolvable on the supposition that crystalline or polar forces acted upon the whole ma.s.s simultaneously in one direction and with adequate force." And again, in another place: "Crystalline forces have rearranged whole mountain-ma.s.ses, producing a beautiful crystalline cleavage, pa.s.sing alike through all the strata."[C] The utterance of such a man struck deep, as was natural, into the minds of geologists, and at the present day there are few who do not entertain this view either in whole or in part.[D] The magnificence of the theory, indeed, has in some cases caused speculation to run riot, and we have books published, aye and largely sold, on the action of polar forces and geologic magnetism, which rather astonish those who know something about the subject. According to the theory referred to, miles and miles of the districts of North Wales and c.u.mberland, comprising huge mountain-ma.s.ses, are neither more nor less than the parts of a gigantic crystal. These ma.s.ses of slate were originally fine mud; this mud is composed of the broken and abraded particles of older rocks. It contains silica, alumina, iron, potash, soda, and mica, mixed in sensible ma.s.ses mechanically together. In the course of ages the ma.s.s became consolidated, and the theory before us a.s.sumes that afterwards a process of crystallization rearranged the particles and developed in the ma.s.s a single plane of crystalline cleavage. With reference to this hypothesis, I will only say that it is a bold stretch of a.n.a.logies; but still it has done good service: it has drawn attention to the question; right or wrong, a theory thus thoughtfully uttered has its value; it is a dynamic power which operates against intellectual stagnation; and, even by provoking opposition, is eventually of service to the cause of truth. It would, however, have been remarkable, if, among the ranks of geologists themselves, men were not found to seek an explanation of the phenomena in question, which involved a less hardy spring on the part of the speculative faculty than the view to which I have just referred.

The first step in an inquiry of this kind is to put oneself into contact with nature, to seek facts. This has been done, and the labours of Sharpe (the late President of the Geological Society, who, to the loss of science and the sorrow of all who knew him, has so suddenly been taken away from us), Sorby, and others, have furnished us with a body of evidence which reveals to us certain important physical phenomena, a.s.sociated with the appearance of slaty cleavage, if they have not produced it. The nature of this evidence we will now proceed to consider.

Fossil sh.e.l.ls are found in these slate-rocks. I have here several specimens of such sh.e.l.ls, occupying various positions with regard to the cleavage planes. They are squeezed, distorted, and crushed. In some cases a flattening of the convex sh.e.l.l occurs, in others the valves are pressed by a force which acted in the plane of their junction, but in all cases the distortion is such as leads to the inference that the rock which contains these sh.e.l.ls has been subjected to enormous pressure in a direction at right angles to the planes of cleavage; the sh.e.l.ls are all flattened and spread out upon these planes. I hold in my hand a fossil trilobite of normal proportions. Here is a series of fossils of the same creature which have suffered distortion. Some have lain across, some along, and some oblique to the cleavage of the slate in which they are found; in all cases the nature of the distortion is such as required for its production a compressing force acting at right angles to the planes of cleavage. As the creatures lay in the mud in the manner indicated, the jaws of a gigantic vice appear to have closed upon them and squeezed them into the shape you see. As further evidence of the exertion of pressure, let me introduce to your notice a case of contortion which has been adduced by Mr. Sorby. The bedding of the rock shown in this figure[E] was once horizontal; at A we have a deep layer of mud, and at _m n_ a layer of comparatively unyielding gritty material; below that again, at B, we have another layer of the fine mud of which slates are formed. This ma.s.s cleaves along the shading lines of the diagram; but look at the shape of the intermediate bed: it is contorted into a serpentine form, and leads irresistibly to the conclusion that the ma.s.s has been pressed together at right angles to the planes of cleavage.

This action can be experimentally imitated, and I have here a piece of clay in which this is done and the same result produced on a small scale. The amount of compression, indeed, might be roughly estimated by supposing this contorted bed _m n_ to be stretched out, its length measured and compared with the distance _c d_; we find in this way that the yielding of the ma.s.s has been considerable.

Let me now direct your attention to another proof of pressure. You see the varying colours which indicate the bedding on this ma.s.s of slate.

The dark portion, as I have stated, is gritty, and composed of comparatively coa.r.s.e particles, which, owing to their size, shape, and gravity, sink first and const.i.tute the bottom of each layer. Gradually from bottom to top the coa.r.s.eness diminishes, and near the upper surface of each layer we have a ma.s.s of comparatively fine clean mud. Sometimes this fine mud forms distinct layers in a ma.s.s of slate-rock, and it is the mud thus consolidated from which are derived the German razor-stones, so much prized for the sharpening of surgical instruments.

I have here an example of such a stone. When a bed is thin, the clean white mud is permitted to rest, as in this case, upon a slab of the coa.r.s.er slate in contact with it: when the bed is thick, it is cut into slices which are cemented to pieces of ordinary slate, and thus rendered stronger. The mud thus deposited sometimes in layers is, as might be expected, often rolled up into nodular ma.s.ses, carried forward, and deposited by the rivers from which the slate-mud has subsided. Here, indeed, are such nodules enclosed in sandstone. Everybody who has ciphered upon a school-slate must remember the whitish-green spots which sometimes dotted the surface of the slate; he will remember how his slate-pencil usually slid over such spots as if they were greasy. Now these spots are composed of the finer mud, and they could not, on account of their fineness, _bite_ the pencil like the surrounding gritty portions of the slate. Here is a beautiful example of the spots: you observe them on the cleavage surface in broad patches; but if this ma.s.s has been compressed at right angles to the planes of cleavage, ought we to expect the same marks when we look at the edge of the slab? The nodules will be flattened by such pressure, and we ought to see evidence of this flattening when we turn the slate edgeways. Here it is. The section of a nodule is a sharp ellipse with its major axis parallel to the cleavage. There are other examples of the same nature on the table; I have made excursions to the quarries of Wales and c.u.mberland, and to many of the slate-yards of London, but the same fact invariably appears, and thus we elevate a common experience of our boyhood into evidence of the highest significance as regards one of the most important problems of geology. In examining the magnetism of these slates, I was led to infer that these spots would contain a less amount of iron than the surrounding dark slate. The a.n.a.lysis was made for me by Mr. Hambly in the laboratory of Dr. Percy at the School of Mines. The result which is stated in this Table justifies the conclusion to which I have referred.

_a.n.a.lysis of Slate._

Purple Slate. Two a.n.a.lyses.

1. Percentage of iron 5.85 2. " " 6.13 Mean 5.99

Greenish Slate.

1. Percentage of iron 3.24 2. " " 3.12 Mean 3.18

The quant.i.ty of iron in the dark slate immediately adjacent to the greenish spot is, according to these a.n.a.lyses, nearly double of the quant.i.ty contained in the spot itself. This is about the proportion which the magnetic experiments suggested.

Let me now remind you that the facts which I have brought before you are typical facts--each is the representative of a cla.s.s. We have seen sh.e.l.ls crushed, the unhappy trilobites squeezed, beds contorted, nodules of greenish marl flattened; and all these sources of independent testimony point to one and the same conclusion, namely, that slate-rocks have been subjected to enormous pressure in a direction at right angles to the planes of cleavage.[F]

In reference to Mr. Sorby's contorted bed, I have said that by supposing it to be stretched out and its length measured, it would give us an idea of the amount of yielding of the ma.s.s above and below the bed. Such a measurement, however, would not quite give the amount of yielding; and here I would beg your attention to a point, the significance of which has, so far as I am aware of, hitherto escaped attention. I hold in my hand a specimen of slate, with its bedding marked upon it; the lower portions of each bed are composed of a comparatively coa.r.s.e gritty material, something like what you may suppose this contorted bed to be composed of. Well, I find that the cleavage takes a bend in crossing these gritty portions, and that the tendency of these portions is to cleave more at right angles to the bedding. Look to this diagram: when the forces commenced to act, this intermediate bed, which though comparatively unyielding is not entirely so, suffered longitudinal pressure; as it bent, the pressure became gradually more lateral, and the direction of its cleavage is exactly such as you would infer from a force of this kind--it is neither quite across the bed, nor yet in the same direction as the cleavage of the slate above and below it, but intermediate between the two. Supposing the cleavage to be at right angles to the pressure, this is the direction which it ought to take across these more unyielding strata.

Thus we have established the concurrence of the phenomena of cleavage and pressure--that they accompany each other; but the question still remains, Is this pressure of itself sufficient to account for the cleavage? A single geologist, as far as I am aware, answers boldly in the affirmative. This geologist is Sorby, who has attacked the question in the true spirit of a physical investigator. You remember the cleavage of the flags of Halifax and Over Darwen, which is caused by the interposition of plates of mica between the layers. Mr. Sorby examines the structure of slate-rock, and finds plates of mica to be a const.i.tuent. He asks himself, what will be the effect of pressure upon a ma.s.s containing such plates confusedly mixed up in it? It will be, he argues--and he argues rightly--to place the plates with their flat surfaces more or less perpendicular to the direction in which the pressure is exerted. He takes scales of the oxide of iron, mixes them with a fine powder, and, on squeezing the ma.s.s, finds that the tendency of the scales is to set themselves at right angles to the line of pressure. Now the planes in which these plates arrange themselves will, he contends, be those along which the ma.s.s cleaves.

I could show you, by tests of a totally different character from those applied by Mr. Sorby, how true his conclusion is, that the effect of pressure on elongated particles or plates will be such as he describes it. Nevertheless, while knowing this fact, and admiring the ability with which Mr. Sorby has treated this question, I cannot accept his explanation of slate-cleavage. I believe that even if these plates of mica were wholly absent, the cleavage of slate-rocks would be much the same as it is at present.

I will not dwell here upon minor facts,--I will not urge that the perfection of the cleavage bears no relation to the quant.i.ty of mica present; but I will come at once to a case which to my mind completely upsets the notion that such plates are a necessary element in the production of cleavage.

Here is a ma.s.s of pure white wax: there are no mica particles here; there are no scales of iron, or anything a.n.a.logous mixed up with the ma.s.s. Here is the self-same substance submitted to pressure. I would invite the attention of the eminent geologists whom I see before me to the structure of this ma.s.s. No slate ever exhibited so clean a cleavage; it splits into laminae of surpa.s.sing tenuity, and proves at a single stroke that pressure is sufficient to produce cleavage, and that this cleavage is independent of the intermixed plates of mica a.s.sumed in Mr.

Sorby's theory. I have purposely mixed this wax with elongated particles, and am unable to say at the present moment that the cleavage is sensibly affected by their presence,--if anything, I should say they rather impair its fineness and clearness than promote it.

The finer the slate the more perfect will be the resemblance of its cleavage to that of the wax. Compare the surface of the wax with the surface of this slate from Borrodale in c.u.mberland. You have precisely the same features in both: you see flakes clinging to the surfaces of each, which have been partially torn away by the cleavage of the ma.s.s: I entertain the conviction that if any close observer compares these two effects, he will be led to the conclusion that they are the product of a common cause.[G]

But you will ask, how, according to my view, does pressure produce this remarkable result? This may be stated in a very few words.

Nature is everywhere imperfect! The eye is not perfectly achromatic, the colours of the rose and tulip are not pure colours, and the freshest air of our hills has a bit of poison in it. In like manner there is no such thing in nature as a body of perfectly h.o.m.ogeneous structure. I break this clay which seems so intimately mixed, and find that the fracture presents to my eyes innumerable surfaces along which it has given way, and it has yielded along these surfaces because in them the cohesion of the ma.s.s is less than elsewhere. I break this marble, and even this wax, and observe the same result: look at the mud at the bottom of a dried pond; look to some of the ungravelled walks in Kensington Gardens on drying after rain,--they are cracked and split, and other circ.u.mstances being equal, they crack and split where the cohesion of the ma.s.s is least. Take then a ma.s.s of partially consolidated mud. a.s.suredly such a ma.s.s is divided and subdivided by surfaces along which the cohesion is comparatively small. Penetrate the ma.s.s, and you will see it composed of numberless irregular nodules bounded by surfaces of weak cohesion.

Figure to your mind's eye such a ma.s.s subjected to pressure,--the ma.s.s yields and spreads out in the direction of least resistance;[H] the little nodules become converted into laminae, separated from each other by surfaces of weak cohesion, and the infallible result will be that such a ma.s.s will cleave at right angles to the line in which the pressure is exerted.

Further, a ma.s.s of dried mud is full of cavities and fissures. If you break dried pipe-clay you see them in great numbers, and there are mult.i.tudes of them so small that you cannot see them. I have here a piece of gla.s.s in which a bubble was enclosed; by the compression of the gla.s.s the bubble is flattened, and the sides of the bubble approach each other so closely as to exhibit the colours of thin plates. A similar flattening of the cavities must take place in squeezed mud, and this must materially facilitate the cleavage of the ma.s.s in the direction already indicated.

Although the time at my disposal has not permitted me to develop this thought as far as I could wish, yet for the last twelve months the subject has presented itself to me almost daily under one aspect or another. I have never eaten a biscuit during this period in which an intellectual joy has not been superadded to the more sensual pleasure, for I have remarked in all such cases cleavage developed in the ma.s.s by the rolling-pin of the pastrycook or confectioner. I have only to break these cakes, and to look at the fracture, to see the laminated structure of the ma.s.s; nay, I have the means of pushing the a.n.a.logy further: I have here some slate which was subjected to a high temperature during the conflagration of Mr. Scott Russell's premises. I invite you to compare this structure with that of a biscuit; air or vapour within the ma.s.s has caused it to swell, and the mechanical structure it reveals is precisely that of a biscuit. I have gone a little into the mysteries of baking while conducting my inquiries on this subject, and have received much instruction from a lady-friend in the manufacture of puff-paste.

Here is some paste baked in this house under my own superintendence. The cleavage of our hills is accidental cleavage, but this is cleavage with intention. The volition of the pastrycook has entered into the formation of the ma.s.s, and it has been his aim to preserve a series of surfaces of structural weakness, along which the dough divides into layers.

Puff-paste must not be handled too much, for then the continuity of the surfaces is broken; it ought to be rolled on a cold slab, to prevent the b.u.t.ter from melting and diffusing itself through the ma.s.s, thus rendering it more h.o.m.ogeneous and less liable to split. This is the whole philosophy of puff-paste; it is a grossly exaggerated case of slaty cleavage.

As time pa.s.sed on, cases multiplied, ill.u.s.trating the influence of pressure in producing lamination. Mr. Warren De la Rue informs me that he once wished to obtain white-lead in a fine granular state, and to accomplish this he first compressed the ma.s.s: the mould was conical, and permitted the ma.s.s to spread a little laterally under the pressure. The lamination was as perfect as that of slate, and quite defeated him in his effort to obtain a granular powder. Mr. Brodie, as you are aware, has recently discovered a new kind of graphite: here is the substance in powder, of exquisite fineness. This powder has the peculiarity of clinging together in little confederacies; it cannot be shaken asunder like lycopodium; and when the ma.s.s is squeezed, these groups of particles flatten, and a perfect cleavage is produced. Mr. Brodie himself has been kind enough to furnish me with specimens for this evening's lecture. I will cleave them before you: you see they split up into plates which are perpendicular to the line in which the pressure was exerted. This testimony is all the more valuable, as the facts were obtained without any reference whatever to the question of cleavage.

I have here a ma.s.s of that singular substance Boghead Cannel. This was once a ma.s.s of mud, more or less resembling this one, which I have obtained from a bog in Lancashire. I feel some hesitation in bringing this substance before you, for, as in other cases, so in regard to Boghead Cannel, science--not science, let me not libel it, but the quibbling, litigious, money-loving portion of human nature speaking through the mask of science--has so contrived to split hairs as to render the qualities of the substance somewhat mythical. I shall therefore content myself with showing you how it cleaves, and with expressing my conviction that pressure had a great share in the production of this cleavage.

The principle which I have enunciated is so simple as to be almost trivial; nevertheless, it embraces not only the cases I have mentioned, but, if time permitted, I think I could show you that it takes a much wider range. When iron is taken from the puddling furnace, it is a more or less spongy ma.s.s: it is at a welding heat, and at this temperature is submitted to the process of rolling: bright smooth bars such as this are the result of this rolling. But I have said that the ma.s.s is more or less spongy or nodular, and, notwithstanding the high heat, these nodules do not perfectly incorporate with their neighbours: what then?

You would say that the process of rolling must draw the nodules into fibres--it does so; and here is a ma.s.s acted upon by dilute sulphuric acid, which exhibits in a striking manner this fibrous structure. The experiment was made by my friend Dr. Percy, without any reference to the question of cleavage.

Here are other cases of fibrous iron. This fibrous structure is the result of mechanical treatment. Break a ma.s.s of ordinary iron and you have a granular fracture; beat the ma.s.s, you elongate these granules, and finally render the ma.s.s fibrous. Here are pieces of rails along which the wheels of locomotives have slidden; the granules have yielded and become plates; they exfoliate or come off in leaves. All these effects belong, I believe, to the great cla.s.s of phenomena of which slaty cleavage forms the most prominent example.[I]

Thus, ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the termination of our task. I commenced by exhibiting to you some of the phenomena of crystallization. I have placed before you the facts which are found to be a.s.sociated with the cleavage of slate-rocks. These facts, as finely expressed by Helmholtz, are so many telescopes to our spiritual vision, by which we can see backward through the night of antiquity, and discern the forces which have been in operation upon the earth's surface

"Ere the lion roared, Or the eagle soared."

From evidence of the most independent and trustworthy character, we come to the conclusion that these slaty ma.s.ses have been subjected to enormous pressure, and by the sure method of experiment we have shown--and this is the only really new point which has been brought before you--how the pressure is sufficient to produce the cleavage.

Expanding our field of view, we find the self-same law, whose footsteps we trace amid the crags of Wales and c.u.mberland, stretching its ubiquitous fingers into the domain of the pastrycook and ironfounder; nay, a wheel cannot roll over the half-dried mud of our streets without revealing to us more or less of the features of this law. I would say, in conclusion, that the spirit in which this problem has been attacked by geologists indicates the dawning of a new day for their science. The great intellects who have laboured at geology, and who have raised it to its present pitch of grandeur, were compelled to deal with the subject in ma.s.s; they had no time to look after details. But the desire for more exact knowledge is increasing; facts are flowing in, which, while they leave untouched the intrinsic wonders of geology, are gradually supplanting by solid truths the uncertain speculations which beset the subject in its infancy. Geologists now aim to imitate, as far as possible, the conditions of nature, and to produce her results; they are approaching more and more to the domain of physics; and I trust the day will soon come when we shall interlace our friendly arms across the common boundary of our sciences, and pursue our respective tasks in a spirit of mutual helpfulness, encouragement, and good-will.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] Referred to in the Introduction.

[B] I merely use this as an ill.u.s.tration; the deposition may have really been due to sediment carried down by rivers. But the action must have been periodic, and the powder duplex.

[C] 'Transactions of the Geological Society,' Ser. ii. vol. iii. p. 477.

[D] In a letter to Sir Charles Lyell, dated from the Cape of Good Hope, February 20, 1836, Sir John Herschel writes as follows:--"If rocks have been so heated as to allow of a commencement of crystallization, that is to say, if they have been heated to a point at which the particles can begin to move amongst themselves, or at least on their own axes, some general law must then determine the position in which these particles will rest on cooling. Probably that position will have some relation to the direction in which the heat escapes. Now when all or a majority of particles of the same nature have a general tendency to one position, that must of course determine a cleavage plane."

[E] Omitted here.

[F] While to my mind the evidence in proof of pressure seems perfectly irresistible, I by no means a.s.sert that the manner in which I stated it is incapable of modification. All that I deem important is the fact that pressure has been exerted; and provided this remain firm, the fate of any minor portion of the evidence by which it is here established is of comparatively little moment.

[G] I have usually softened the wax by warming it, kneaded it with the fingers, and pressed it between thick plates of gla.s.s previously wetted.

At the ordinary summer-temperature the wax is soft, and tears rather than cleaves; on this account I cool my compressed specimens in a mixture of pounded ice and salt, and when thus cooled they split beautifully.

[H] It is scarcely necessary to say that if the ma.s.s were squeezed equally in _all_ directions no laminated structure could be produced; it must have room to yield in a lateral direction.

[I] An eminent authority informs me that he believes these surfaces of weak cohesion to be due to the interposition of films of graphite, and not to any tendency of the iron itself to become fibrous: this of course does not in any way militate against the theory which I have ventured to propose. All that the theory requires is surfaces of weak cohesion, however produced, and a change of shape of such surfaces consequent on pressure or rolling.