The weekly Ottumwa courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1857-1872, 1861-02-20
The March of Glaciers.

| There are few spectacles in nature so cal
! culated to inspire awe and provoke curiosity
as those "motionless torrents, silent catara.
cts" which form the glaciers Of the Alps
At first sight, one could almost sympa.hize
with the stolid English tourist, who, after
gazing on one of them for some time in 81
lence, declared that it was "obtr, sive and
unmeaning." There is something unspeak
ably strange and perplexing in the presence
of vast mass Office, to all appearance fixed,
immutable, under burning sun, and in
close contact with verdurc and fertility The
dazzling pallor, the desolation, the silence of
the "dead sea" of ice, contrast f,rcibly with
the ripe corn fields, the spreading foliage,
and the
"Flowers Of Iovliest blue
That skirt the eternal forest"
tits death in the midst of life, the skelton
at the banquet of nature.
Standing by the brink or on the surface
of the hard, rigid mass, the assertion that it
moves is startling, and almost incredible !;
indeed certain professor of Tubigcn went
home, after visit to Switzerland, and wrote
a book fatty denying the possibility of gla-
cier motion. Observation and reflection,
however, quickly remove our doubts. We
have only to keep our eye on one of the
blocks of stone upon the ice, in line with
two fixed points-a tree or ledge of rock
at opposite sides of the glacier, to be assured
that the stone changes its position, and is
borne downwards with the ice. The glacier,
too, tells its story in unmistakable language.
1t inscribcs the record of its journey on the
hardest rocks, and carries en- its breast or
its base, fragments of distant mountains,
which, like the scallop in the palmer's hat
tell Of its wa nderings. In fact, the very ex-
istenc, of the glacier depends on its notion
Unless the ice below the snow line, which
during every summer is melted by the sun,
were replaced. the lower part of the glacier
would in few years disappear. While
however, the ice at the base is gradually be-
ing reduced to water, fresh snow is falling
on the summit fthe mountain, and displa-
cling previous deposits, which, descending,
are converted into ice, and added to the gla-
cier. According to Renoln, the accu,nula-
ton of the mountain SHOWS adds each year
SO inches of ice to glacier. This would
make Mount Blank 400 feet higher in a cen.
tury, and 1905 feet higher in 1000 years
Dissolution and compensation are thus con-
stantly going forward, and the downward
motion of the mass prevents any diminution
from being observed. Rigid and inhexible,
therefore, as the glacier seems, it is in reality
restless body, subject to constant motion
and perpetual change, ever fastening from
its birth place in the mountain bosom above,
to its grave in the pasture ground below. 1t
is something more than mere metaphor to
call glacier naer de glace. The resemblance
extends beyond the mere wave like appear
ance ofthe surface. The deeps and shadows,
widenings and narrowngs, rapids and slug
gish parts. the depression which occurs
when the current sweeps around buttress,
the justification ofthe branches and tributa-
ries-all are to be found in the glacier as in
the river ......... ..... .....