Earth Features and Their Meaning / An Introduction to Geology for the Student and the General Reader

by William Herbert Hobbs

At the entrance of the Neckar River to this broad plain is nestled the picturesque castle and university town of Heidelberg, a convenient center for excursions (Julius Ruska, Geologische Streifzüge in Heidelbergs Umgebung, etc., Nägele, Leipzig, 1908, pp. 208, map). At Strassburg (Schwarzwaldstrasse 12) is located the German Chief Station for Earthquake Study, with a particularly large set of modern seismographs. In the university cabinet is also one of the largest and most representative mineral collections in Europe. For excursions in the neighborhood consult Benecke, Sammlung Geognostische Führer, Vol. 5, Elsass, 1900.

From Strassburg we may go by the Black Forest Railway to the Hegau with its volcanic plugs ([140]), each surmounted by a picturesque castle. We enter next the broadly extended piedmont apron site, above which Lake Constance still remains as a border lake ([399]). Outwash aprons ([314]), moraines ([311]), and drumlins ([317]) are each in turn encountered. Still continuing our course up the Rhine from Bregenz, we enter the fretted upland ([372]) of the Alps, mountains composed of great folds and thrusts about a core of intrusive rock (Rothpletz, Sammlung Geologische Führer, Vol. 10, 1902, Thrusts in the Alps between Lake Constance and the Engadine). Some fourteen miles above Chur we pass the terrace produced by successive landslides ([414]), known far and wide as the Flimser Bergstürz. The further assent of the cascade stairway of this glacier-carved valley brings us to the Furka Pass, from which point magnificent views of the fretted upland are obtained. At the Känzli, a mile from the hotel, one may view the névé of the Rhone Glacier, which may also be easily visited.

We have now followed a great river from its mouth in the sands of Holland to its source in the snows of the higher Alps. Passing over the divide and descending to Gletsch, we may observe the lower end, or foot, of the Rhone glacier and the crevasses and séracs ([391]) on the steep descent of this radiating glacier ([383], [386]). The response which glaciers make to climatic changes is here well illustrated by the recession of the glacier front from near the hotel (its position in the ’50s of the nineteenth century) to its present position about a mile farther up the valley.

The characteristics of a glaciated mountain valley may be further illustrated by climbing to the Grimsel Pass, which is scratched and striated ([377], [385]), and then descending the valley of the Aar to Meyringen ([377]). Near the Grimsel Hospice are the characteristic rock basin lakes ([412]), and upon the Aar Glacier to our left were carried out the epoch-making researches of Louis Agassiz, the founder of the glacial theory for explaining the drift. We encounter some thirteen rock bars ([377]). Just before reaching Meyringen we pass the last of these, the Gorge of the Aar, cut by the stream through limestone.

Interlaken ([419]) may be made the center for additional excursions up the Lauterbrunnen Valley, with its prominent albs ([376]) and its ribbon fall of the Staubbach ([378]). By the Jungfrau Mountain railway we may now ascend partly in tunnels of the rock to the Ewigeismeer, and look down upon the névé and bergschrunds of the Great Aletsch Glacier ([370], see Baltzer, Sammlung Geologische Führer, Vol. 10, Bernese Oberland, 1906). Returning to Interlaken by way of Grindelwald, one may study the foot of a radiating glacier, the Untergrindelwald glacier, with its tunnel and its milky and braided stream.

Crossing now the Alpine foreland to Villeneuve at the upper end of Lake Geneva and upon a well-developed strath ([426], [428]), we may look out upon the turbid waters extending far from the shore of the lake. Journeying to Geneva by steamer we note the gradual clearing of the water until at the outlet of the lake it is as clear as crystal. A walking trip from Geneva takes us to the Bois de la Bâtie, where the Arve with turbid waters meets this clear stream ([427]).

The railroad to Chamonix ascends another cascade stairway ([376]), affords views of complexly folded sedimentary rocks ([43]), and at Chamonix itself the mer de glace supplies opportunities for the study of moraines ([386], [393]) and glacial movement ([390-392]). To experienced Alpinists the summit of Mount Blanc offers a remarkably extended outlook over the fretted upland of the Alps ([pl. 18 A]). From the station of LeFayet below Chamonix, one may ascend to the Désert de la Platé, where are Schratten in limestone due to solution ([188]).

Crossing by one of the passes to the valley of the Rhone at Martigny we may reach Zermatt, to-day the climbing center of the Alps. From the subordinate cirques surrounding this village descend the Gorner, Findelen, St. Theodul, and other components of this radiating glacier. A black tooth of rock, the Matterhorn, towers above the other peaks and shows to greatest advantage this feature of glacial sculpture ([374]), while the Gorge of the Gorner is a severed rock bar like that of the Aar ([377]). Either on foot or over the mountain railway we may ascend to the Gorner Grat, a subordinate comb ridge ([373]) which affords one of the most magnificent and instructive views of radiating glaciers.

From Brig, farther up the Rhone Valley, an excursion is made to the Eggishorn Hotel, a center for study on and about the Great Aletsch Glacier ([329], [371], [385], [388], [395], [410]). The easy ascent of the Eggishorn is rewarded by a view almost directly downward upon the ice-dammed Márjelen Lake ([329], [411]).