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I.—The Cause Of The Glacial Period, With Reference To The British Isles1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

Extract

It is a fact universally accepted that, within a period comparatively recent, extensive districts in North America and in Europe, now fruitful and luxuriant, were covered with a thick mantle of snow and ice; and their valleys were filled with glaciers, which extended into the sea, and, breaking off at their extremities, floated away as icebergs.

Type
Original Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1875

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References

page 574 note 1 In the President's Address to the Geologists' Association, Nov. 7th, 1873, Mr. H. Woodward, F.R S., has objected to the theory of subsidence being the result of accumulation, on the grounds that if in the Bay of Bengal (where, by the artesian borings made in the Delta of the Ganges, the land has been proved to have sunk to the depth of 481 feet and upwards) the sediment deposited has power by gravitation to thus depress the ocean-bed, much more ought the solid mass of the Himalayan range, with its innumerable and lofty peaks, to sink into the yielding crust beneath (Geol. Mag. 1873). But the areas out of which the Himalayas have been sculptured have, from the commencement of their present denudation, been sustained above the sea-level, and the weight to be supported has diminished, as particle after particle has been removed, the peaks and valleys registering a portion, but by no means the greater amount, of the denudation the mass has undergone; so that the Himalayas, in consequence of the great amount of denudation to which they have been subjected, will not press with so great a weight upon the fluid substratum. But if the sediment brought down by the Ganges and Brahmapootra has caused, by its weight that subsidence which has taken place in the Bay of Bengal, it necessarily follows that the area, forming and supporting these mountains, must rise in accordance with the amount of material removed.

page 575 note 1 J. Campbell, F.G.S. “Frost and Fire.”

page 576 note 1 A Visit to Iceland. By Madame Ida Pfeiffer. Page 64.

page 576 note 2 Iceland: its Scenes and Sagas. By S. Baring-Gould. Page xxxi.

page 577 note 1 Admiralty Chart.

page 577 note 2 The Naturalist in Nicaragua. By Thos. Belt F.G.S. Page 35.

page 577 note 3 Tertiary Beds in St. Domingo. By Heneken, T. S.. Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. vi. p. 44.Google Scholar

page 577 note 4 Notice of the Geology of Jamaica. By Duncan, P. M. M.B., Sec. G. S., and Wall, G. P. F.G.S.Quart Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xxi. pp. 5 and 6.Google Scholar

page 577 note 5 On Tertiary Beds in San Domingo. From Notes by Heneken, T. S.. Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. vi. page 39Google Scholar.

page 577 note 6 Colorado Exploring Expedition.—Geology. By Dr. J. S. Newberry. Page 12.

page 579 note 1 Mr. James Geikie, “Great Ice Age.”

page 580 note 1 Climate of the Glacial Period. By Thomas Belt, F.G.S. Quart. Journ. of Science, 1874, page 461.Google Scholar Variations in the Obliquity of the Ecliptic. By Colonel, A. W.Drayson, F.R.A.S. Quart. Journ. of Science, 1876, page 279.Google Scholar