St. Landry democrat., 1879-05-03
THE GREAT ICE AGE.
What the Scnentfats Have to Say About
AnNaher Glacial Period.


Another Glacial Period
The scientists announce that in fifty
thousand years hence this earth Will
encounter another glacial period, when
vast icebergs will again grind their way
across our continent, and play havoc
generally. Sir William Herschel thought
the great ice age was produced by heat
and not by cold. That time was when
the sun shvne much hotter on the earth
than now, and the force of its rays beat
ing on the great oceans near the equator
vaporized large quantities of wster and
foated it out into aqueous atmosphere,
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 form 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 a hundred degrees
colder at the poles than is necessary to
CONCEAL water; hence, what is wanting
to form great fields of ice is not cold,
but heat, to vaporize the material at the
equator and float it north. The more
heat the more vapor, and the more
vapor the more ice, for if it were huns
bred 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 b-lief 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 eccentricity 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 a circle, but in an
ellipse, 100000 miles longer than it is
wide, and the eccentricity of this elljpse
is not always the same that is to say,
we are now, in the northern hemisphere,
in the winter season, 100000 miles
nearer the sun than in the summer.
About 100000 years (and some put it
as high as 100000 years) ago, the
ear!h's path commenced elongating, so
that it went out 14,O0O,000 miles further
from the sun than its nearest proximity,
and by the procession of the equinox
(Which I have now no time to explain) /,
once in 800 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 reteat itself and
produce succeeding ice ages, which
:, seems in accordance with the facts.
"And to this wonderful provision O.
nature our mother earth is indebted tOl
, the conditions that make her the abode
, of life. The earth's crust was one rock
D hard, unyielding rock, and there was nc
= soil to nourish vegetation. The sol
upon its bosom now is all ground rock.
The task of grinding, crushing such al
! immense quantity of rock would have
occupied the simple wash of waters ane
> force of winds ard the action of carboni'
! acid gas more ages than the wildes
r. geologist has ever ascribed to our globe
- "Fragments of great ice.6elds (ice
bergs larger than township, la ger thai
4 county, possibly, and half mile il
thickness, with vast sections of tn
earth's crust OF rock frozen beneath them
4 tken floating out, and, resting upon rock
h again, they rocked and rolled and swaye
J., and ground, rock upon rock, for thou
~ sands # years, impelled by the wave
n and winds. 1t has teen thought b
r many, and perhaps most, scientific mel
that during these periods there was
,ubsidence of the continents covered b
the ice-felds that caused their subme
gence. have thought that subsiden'
ly was not necessary, that the melting
ly the vast ice-caps during the hot summe
p, would send food of water down ov
e. the land of sufficient depth to float Il
an largest icebergs. What a strange scel
ly to contemplate, our grand prairies co
nd cred by an immense ocean (possibly
Oh fresh wster), floating great schools
'le icebergs in wild, desolate confusion-tl
ly, roar of the ocean, the awful crushing al
cs, grinding of ice and rock, pierced only
it the scream of the sea bird, who, wi
nd God alone, beheld the vast waste"
an And all this desolation, they tell I
nd is to come upon our beautiful ear
ice again. In fifty thousand years will co
me mepce recurrence OF the great glac
rds M. uo,,boor 10 ON ;r+oras+;