The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1879-04-03
THE GREAT ICE AGE.
what Tire Reseufists Nave to ay Abo
Auother Glacial Period

4 uu&Gou IL Out intO a4uoOus @SIOoPhNA0j
which was waited north into cold eli
mate near the pole, where it was con-
densed by cold into heavy clouds and
fell upon the earth in lorm of snow
that such great bodies of snow and ice
fell during the winter that the short
summers that followed were insufficient
to melt them away, and year after year
the mass slowly accumulated at the
poles and gradually crept down upon
the temperate zones, until the ice-cap
covered the whole northern portion OF
our continent and nearly all of Europe,
also the southern hemisphere. This
theory would seem at first quite rational,
for we know it is hundred degrees
colder at the poles than is necessary to
CONCEAL water; hence, what Is wanting
to form grest fields of ice is not cold,
but heat, to gapOrizs the material at tie
equator and float il north. The more
heat the more vapor, and the more
vapor the more ice, for if it were huns
dred degrees warmer at the poles than
now it would still be cold enough to
form ice.
But the testimony of the rocks is in
favor of the belief that there has been
more than one glacial period, and the
above view demands the assumption
that the sun was cooler between the ice
| periods, that it was intermittent in its
heat. There are no known facts to war
rant this conclusion. The theory more
generally accepted by the scientists of
to-day is that the glacial period was
produced by the varying eccentrieity of
the earth in its path around the sun.
Prof. Paige, in his recent lecture, thus
described this theory:
The earth travels around the sun
once year, not in circle, but in an
ellipse, 1000 900 miles longer than it is
wide, and the eccentIicity OF this ellipse
is not always the same that is to say,
we are now, in the northern hemisphere,
in the winter season, 1000. 600 miles
nearer the sun than in the summer.
About $50, 900 years Gard some put it
as high as 100000 years. ago, the
earth's path commenced elongating, so
that it went out Il, 900 600 miles further
from the sun than it, nearest proximity,
and by the procession Of the equinox
(Which / have now no time TO explsin),
once in 10, 500 years our winter seasons
in the northern hemisphere occur when
we are farthest from the sun, and the
same Of the southern hemisphere. This,
it Will be seen, would give US hot sum-
mers and long, cold winters, and the
phenomenon would repeat itself and
produce succeeding Ice ages, which |
seems in accordance with the facts.
"And to this wonderful provision of
nature our mother earth is indebted for |
the conditions that make her the abode |
OF life. The earth's crust was one rock
hard, unyielding rock, and there was no |
soil to nourish vegetation. The soil |
upon its bosom now is all ground rock. |
The task of grinding, crushing such sn
immense quantity of rock would have
occupied the simple wash of waters and
force of winds and the action OF carbonic |
acid gas more ages than the widest
geologist has ever asoribed to our globe.
Fragments of great iee.6elds (ice-
bergs larger than township, lager than
q county, possibly, and half mile in
thickness, with vast sections of the
earth's crust OF rock frozen beneath them)
tken floating out, and, resting upon rocks
again, they rocked and rolled and swayed
and ground, rock upon rock, for thou
sands If years, impelled by the waves
and winds. 1t has been thought by
many, and perhaps most, scientific men,
that during these periods there was
subsidence of the continents covered by
the ics-felds that caused their submer-
gence. Ihsve thought that subsistence
was not necessary, that the melting of
the vast ice-caps during the hot summers
would send food of water down over
the land of sufficient depth to float the
largest icebergs. What strange scene
to contemplate, our grand prairies coy-
cred by an immense ocean POSSIBLY OF
fresh wster), floating great schools OF
icebergs in wild, desolate confu-ion-the
rosr of the ocean, the awful crushing and
grinding OF ice and rock, pierced only by
the scream of the sea bird, who, with
God alone, beheld the vast waste"
And all this desolation, they tell us,
s to come upon our beautiful earth
again. In fifty thousand years will com
nence recurrence OF the great glacial
epoch. The prophecy is an interesting
me, and is well worth examination /; but
With the assurance that there ia to be no
change of climate on the earth until
hat time, we present mortals can close
he book upon the important intelli
renee and Conclude not to worry.
ROweIl's Snort Stride.
New York Herald mmunication.
.