We hear a great deal said about the age of Glaciers. This is assuming that the Earth has at some time been in a condition to be almost uninhabitable, as evidences of this Glacial influence seem to be reported from all parts of the globe.
As the theory of a warmer climate having existed in primeval times and that the Earth is and has been for ages cooling off hardly leaves a place for a universal period of Glaciers.
It hardly seems rational that the vast accumulation of flora to produce the coal deposits and sustain the wonderful specimens of animal and reptile growth could have been interrupted by a period of ice. If so, the earth in its present condition shows evidence of growing warmer instead of cooling off.
It is by the writer seriously doubted that the many evidences attributed to glaciers can be charged to their influence.
Where large rocks are found foreign to anything in their immediate surroundings and similar to formations at quite long distances away, the explanation that the straggling specimens were carried there by glaciers is not necessarily conclusive.
There may be many instances where such evidences are the work of glaciers, but it does not seem as if an ice age were needful to produce the changes of rock, or to show the markings on rocks claimed to have been caused by glacial abrasions. Icebergs can produce and explain every such feature as is claimed for the glacier, and there seems to be little reason to doubt that similar evidences such as are imputed to glaciers are constantly going on as much at the present day as in any remote age in the past.
There can be no doubt that icebergs have existed in all time from the earliest movement of the Earth’s machinery.
As explained in treating of icebergs, an area of extent equal to some of our smaller States frozen to a depth of thousands of feet breaks up and floats away from the polar oceans. Presuming an iceberg large as the State of Rhode Island to start off, which is very likely a small estimate of the size of many, such berg being exposed to thawing winds and the sun’s rays until thousands of miles away from its starting point, and after all these exposures is often a mass of 300 or more feet high and 2,000 feet deep. Imagine the weight and force of such a body striking the peak of some submarine mountain, the top of a hill with the momentum produced by wind and tide. There tops could as easily be wiped off and carried long distances, as a man can strike off the top of a measure of grain, and leave the same marks attributed to glaciers.
These great masses of rock and soil supposed to be transferred from their original deposit are carried long distances till melting has loosened a hold, and they are dropped to the bottom of the ocean and left for the wonderment and surmise of the future as to how they got there. This process of wiping off high points of submarine lands must be going on just as much at the present time as ever in the past, and seems a very wise and cheap system of dredging instituted by Providence.
With the reasoning to follow of how the Earth obtains and maintains its warmth an ice age would seem an impossibility and absurdity.
Here again the influence of Springs is called into service. As all the hills and mountains, it is here claimed, are the results of water aided by centrifugal force, therefore the hills and mountains become the reservoirs of supply for all the lower parts of the Earth. This arrangement of Nature provided the means for producing a Glacier. At high altitudes in the mountains, whether in the frigid zone or in the temperate, break forth springs; coursing down the mountain side to the valleys, the waters soon become aërated so as to freeze. Springs from different ranges and neighboring heights contribute their streams, all commingling in the deep cañons and freezing in a mass. With the accumulations of snow and rain, this body grows until in time, by the constant supply from the springs, rain and snow, the mountain gorges are filled however wide and large they may be.
This monstrous aggregation of ice must of course seek a lower point by its enormous weight and constant accumulation on top, and naturally begins to crawl down the valley grade. The first inception of a glacier is spring water, which with other contributions named ultimately produces what may be called a river of ice.
Under the ice river is always flowing a stream of water, and many air holes and openings are found upon the surface at different points, no doubt produced by the influence of spring water coming in of temperature above freezing or at the usual fifty-two degrees, about the average of fresh water springs in all latitudes. This conglomeration of influences to make a glacier shows the absurdity of having such solid masses break off, as claimed to be seen by Arctic explorers, large enough to remain intact well down into the Atlantic Ocean. As these mountain ravines fill up, of course the waters involve and cover with ice, every rock and tree, and all such objects in the way must necessarily be carried to some lower point and ultimately left. This faculty of a glacier has given it credit for performing all such apparent transitions, while icebergs which evidently do 1,000 times this amount of work are getting much the smaller share of credit.
It has been reported by sailors in the region of icebergs that by observations taken during a few months, they perceptibly grow many feet higher, which goes to prove the claim that they are constantly being added to from underneath. With change of season, these monsters are floated away from their moorings, toward the Equator to cool and freshen the main oceans, produce electric currents of air, become the wonder and terror of ocean travel, and melting away under tropical suns; or on the other hand, some may seek the interior and contribute themselves to the cooling of the waters that manifest themselves in refreshing springs all over the Earth.
There were newspaper reports of large masses of ice being thrown out during the great eruption in the Island of Java, but such statements may do better for newspaper items than to sustain an argument in this work. How can this equable condition of spring water, with its delicious coolness adjusted to all seasons and tastes, be accounted for if it does not come practically from one common source? Will some scientist answer?