The Forms of Water in Clouds and Rivers, Ice and Glaciers

by John Tyndall

217. A river descending the Valley du Géant would behave in substantially the same fashion. It would have its motion on approaching Trélaporte diminished, and it would pour through the defile with a velocity greater than that of the water behind.

[§ 31.] Sliding and Flowing. Hard Ice and Soft Ice.

218. We have thus far confined ourselves to the measurement and discussion of glacier motion; but in our excursions we have noticed many things besides. Here and there, where the ice has retreated from the mountain side, we have seen the rocks fluted, scored, and polished; thus proving that the ice had slidden over them and ground them down. At the source of the Arveiron we noticed the water rushing from beneath the glacier charged with fine matter. All glacier rivers are similarly charged. The Rhone carries its load of matter into the Lake of Geneva; the rush of the river is here arrested, the matter subsides, and the Rhone quits the lake clear and blue. The Lake of Geneva, and many other Swiss lakes, are in part filled up with this matter, and will, in all probability, finally be obliterated by it.

219. One portion of the motion of a glacier is due to this bodily sliding of the mass over its bed.

220. We have seen in our journeys over the glacier streams formed by the melting of the ice, and escaping through cracks and crevasses to the bed of the glacier. The fine matter ground down is thus washed away; the bed is kept lubricated, and the sliding of the ice rendered more easy than it would otherwise be.

221. As a skater also you know how much ice is weakened by a thaw. Before it actually melts it becomes rotten and unsafe. Test such ice with your penknife: you can dig the blade readily into it, or cut the ice with ease. Try good sound ice in the same way: you find it much more resistant. The one, indeed, resembles soft chalk; the other hard stone.

222. Now the Mer de Glace in summer is in this thawing condition. Its ice is rendered soft and yielding by the sun; its motion is thereby facilitated. We have seen that not only does the glacier slide over its bed, but that the upper layers slide over the under ones, and that the centre slides past the sides. The softer and more yielding the ice is, the more free will be this motion, and the more readily also will it be forced through a defile like Trélaporte.

223. But in winter the thaw ceases; the quantity of water reaching the bed of the glacier is diminished or entirely cut off. The ice also, to a certain depth at least, is frozen hard. These considerations would justify the opinion that in winter the glacier, if it moves at all, must move more slowly than in summer. At all events, the summer measurements give no clue to the winter motion.

224. This point merits examination. I will not, however, ask you to visit the Alps in mid-winter; but, if you allow me, I will be your deputy to the mountains, and report to you faithfully the aspect of the region and the behaviour of the ice.