Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1879-10-19
The Glacial Period.

A"Co
lei of latitude was submerged and
capped with ice as Greenland now IS.
That was the glacial period, the traces
of which are found on the surface of en-
bedded rocks, in the morains of glaciers,
and the powders which were carried in
those vast morning rivers Of ice and de-
posted at great distances from their ma
tive locality.
In both Europe and America are found
the bones Of animals, the survivors Of
OF which are now to be found in the high
Arctic latitudes, and those Of some ex-
tlnct species, such as the mastodon, the
woolly hippopotamus and aurochs crea-
lures that could not live in Southern Eu-
rope or America. The race of which the
Esquimaux, the Firms, and Lapps are a
remnant, then spread over the continents,
and lived by hunting and trapping the
various animals that belonged to the age
of ice. =
But how was the change of Topography
and of climate effected? Not by any
cataclysm or convulsion of nature, though
that theory was once maintained. The
work Of subsistence was gradual, as also
the emergcnce of the land. 1t was due
to what is astronomically known as the
procession Of the equinoxes. At least
this theory is now generally received
among scientists, and Is ingeniensly
demonstrated by Mr.. H. B. Norton in
the October number of the Popular
Monthly. ....
We could not, without the aid of dia-
gram, illustrate the nature of this process
sion. Sufficient to say the earths axis Is
not always parallel to itself. It is sub
ject to very slow gyratory motion in
an opposite direction to the revolution of
the earth, motion estimated at about SO
degrees minutes year. The rate of
this motion having been ascertained, it
is easy to calculate the length of time re-
quired before the earth will occupy the
same position with respect to a line
drawn through the greatest diameter of
its elliptical orbit that it occupies to-
day.
This period is estimated at $1,000
years, and is called the Great Year. In
computing this long procession of equi-
noctial changes, it will come to pass that
when the earth is at it's greatest distance
from the sun, the South instead of the
North Pole will be turned toward it, and
the succession of the seasons will be re-
Versed. That is to say, our winters will
be longer than our summers, as in the
southern Hemisphere is the case now
That hemisphere has now winter OF 1877
days and a summer of 179 days.
It may be reasoned from this that more
ice accumulates at the South Pole during
y1r7fn fh0v, tod h
short summer. Add such is found to be
the fact. According to Mr.. Norton the
ice-cap Of the Antarctic continent, about
5000 miles in diameter, is gradually &C
cumulating. The Arctic ice-cap is much
smaller, and honeycombed at that by the
warm interoceanic currents pouring con-
stantly upon it.
Mr.. Norton tells US that if we assign
an average thickness of $4,000 feet to the
Antarctic ice-cap, "we should have a
mass of ice large enough to displacc the
earth's centre of gravity nearly mile to
the south of the centre,' and that grad
ual displacement would produce ian i'm
percptibie drainage Of the oceans from
the north to the south, and the gradual
emergcnce of northern and submergence
of southern continents"
This is what is gradually going on.
The biologists assert that the northern
continents are slowly rising, and that the
islands Of the South Pacific are sinking,
Or rather, according to Mr.. Norton theo-
ry, the water is slowly draining from the
northern, and accommodating in the south
ern hemisp ere. The process will con-
! tIp11n fbn,,c.nIc nf ~
come, until, "through the submergence Of
southern lands and the extension Of the
Antarctic ce-cap, the condition Of the
southern hemisphere will approximate to
that of the northern continents during
the glacial age" Thus each hemisphere
passes through alternate periods of pre-
| pOnderancc of summer or winter, each
period being about 10000 years
According to astronomical calculations,
our present great northern summer COM
menced some $500 years ago. While
the Southern Hemisphere is undergoing
slow refrigeration and gradual submer-
gence. The process" says Mr.. Merton.
"has passed its middle, but not its cul-
mlnation, even as the greatest average
cold Of our ordinary winter is nearer the
vernal equinox than the winter solsticc'
In about two thousand years from now, he
thinks, the southern continent will be
still more deeply deluged; the Antartic
ice cap will have extended several hun
dred miles northward, and the glaciers,
which have already appeared among the
Andes, will have covered the plateaus of
Patagonia and Chill. Never theless man
kind will not then witness the utmost
possible degree Of refrigeration, '.because
| the ellipticity of the eartn's orbit is now
less than it has been at certain periods of
the past, and will be again in the remote
future'' ..s .-.-......-.. .....
Mr.. Norton might have strengthened
his theory Of this gradual change, due to
the procession of the equinoxes, by cita-
| tions from the writings of the ancients,
beginning with He:odotus and coming
down to the first century Of the Christian
era. In the time Of the ''father of his
tory the land occupied by the Scythians
| was described as one Of perpetual snow
| and almost, if not quite, unlnhabited.
In the time of Cesar the grape and other
fruits of a temperate climate were not
grown north OF Italy, and even in the
land of the sun the winters were more
severe, the frosts more frequent, and the
snow more abundant. This climatic
| change has been attributed to the cult
| vation of the soil, the drainage of the
lana, and the cutting down of the vast
forests. But it is still going on. as the
gradual recession and disappearance of
| the glaciers amOnp the Aims show Their