Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel | Page 4

the
distinction is marked. Some of the stones in the bowlder-clay are
furrowed or striated, but a large part of them are not; while in the "till"
the stone not striated is the rare exception.

Above this bowlder-clay we find sometimes beds of loose gravel, sand,
and stones, mixed with the remains of man and other animals. These
have all the appearance of being later in their deposition, and of having
been worked over by the action of water and ice.
This, then, is, briefly stated, the condition of the Drift.
It is plain that it was the result of violent action of some kind.
And this action must have taken place upon an unparalleled and
continental scale. One writer describes it as,
"A remarkable and stupendous period--a period so startling that it
might justly be accepted with hesitation, were not the conception
unavoidable before a series of facts as extraordinary as itself."[2]
Remember, then, in the discussions which follow, that if the theories
advanced are gigantic, the facts they seek to explain are not less so. We
are not dealing with little things. The phenomena are continental,
world-wide, globe-embracing.
[1. Dana's "Text-Book," p. 221.
2. Gratacap, "Ice Age," "Popular Science Monthly," January, 1878.]


CHAPTER II.
THE ORIGIN OF THE DRIFT NOT KNOWN.
WHILE several different origins have been assigned for the phenomena
known as "the Drift," and while one or two of these have been widely
accepted and taught in our schools as established truths, yet it is not too
much to say that no one of them meets all the requirements of the case,
or is assented to by the profoundest thinkers of our day.

Says one authority:
"The origin of the unstratified drift is a question which has been much
controverted."[1]
Louis Figuier says,[2] after considering one of the proposed theories:
"No such hypothesis is sufficient to explain either the cataclysms or the
glacial phenomena; and we need not hesitate to confess our ignorance
of this strange, this mysterious episode in the history of our globe. . . .
Nevertheless, we repeat, no explanation presents itself which can be
considered conclusive; and in science we should never be afraid to say,
I do not know."
Geikie says:
"Many geologists can not yet be persuaded that till has ever formed and
accumulated under ice." [3]
A recent scientific writer, after summing up all the facts and all the
arguments, makes this confession:
[1. "American Cyclopædia," vol. vi, p. 112.
2. "The World before the Deluge," pp. 435, 463.
3. "The Great Ice Age," p. 370.]
{p. 9}
From the foregoing facts, it seems to me that we are justified in
concluding:
"1. That however simple and plausible the Lyellian hypothesis may be,
or however ingenious the extension or application of it suggested by
Dana, it is not sustained by any proof, and the testimony of the rocks
seems to be decidedly against it.
"2. Though much may yet be learned from a more extended and careful

study of the glacial phenomena of all parts of both hemispheres, the
facts already gathered seem to be incompatible with any theory yet
advanced which makes the Ice period simply a series of telluric
phenomena, and so far strengthens the arguments of those who look to
extraneous and cosmical causes for the origin of these phenomena."[1]
The reader will therefore understand that, in advancing into this
argument, he is not invading a realm where Science has already set up
her walls and bounds and landmarks; but rather he is entering a forum
in which a great debate still goes on, amid the clamor of many tongues.
There are four theories by which it has been attempted to explain the
Drift.
These are:
I. The action of great waves and floods of water.
II. The action of icebergs.
III. The action of glaciers.
IV. The action of a continental ice-sheet.
We will consider these several theories in their order.
[1. "Popular Science Monthly," July, 1876, p. 290.]
{p. 10}


CHAPTER III.
THE ACTION OF WAVES.
WHEN men began, for the first time, to study the drift deposits, they

believed that they found in them the results of the Noachic Deluge; and
hence the Drift was called the Diluvium, and the period of time in
which it was laid down was entitled the Diluvial age.
It was supposed that--
"Somehow and somewhere in the far north a series of gigantic waves
was mysteriously propagated. These waves were supposed to have
precipitated themselves upon the land, and then swept madly over
mountain and valley alike, carrying along with them a mighty burden
of rocks and stones and rubbish. Such deluges were called 'waves of
translation.'"[1]
There were many difficulties about this theory:
In the first place, there was no cause assigned for these waves, which