*256 Professor Agassiz on the Glacier Theory/. 



maincd stationary. We cut out a second but smaller triangle 

 under the ice itself, at a distance of 17 feet 5 inches from the 

 first, and I hope to find both covered by the ice next sum- 

 mer. 



Another objection which has been made to my theory is the 

 following. If, as you say, the temperature of the glacier is con- 

 stantly at 0° (32° F.) and under it, how can it be conceived that 

 the water should remain liquid and penetrate into the interior of, 

 the mass ? AVill it not freeze by the simple contact of the 

 ice I The action of the dilatation ought, therefore, to be con- 

 fined to the surface, and ought not to produce any effect on 

 the inferior beds of the glacier. This reasoning is undoubt- 

 edly just, but those who have made use of it as an objection 

 here maintain a physical necessity which does not exist in na- 

 ture, when they suppose that the infiltrated water, which ac- 

 quires the temperature of the glacier by being introduced into 

 it, must necessarily freeze when its temperature descends be- 

 low zero. Because all ice has a temperature at least as low 

 as 0°, it does not follow also, that water cannot exist below 0". 

 It will suffice to mention here, the experiments of Professor 

 August,* which have demonstrated that water can be pre- 

 served in a liquid state, in vacuo, at — 12° ( + 5° F.), and 

 even at — 13°5 R ( 4 3°87 P.). According to that author, 

 no shock, however violent, can produce congelation under 

 these circumstances at a temperature of — 2°.5 R (+ 28°.6 F.) 

 Now, may it not be the same with the water which penetrates 

 into the interior of the glacier ? But science ought not to 

 rest satisfied either with possibilities or probabilities, when we 

 have to do with a phenomenon accessible to our researches ; 

 and the question can only be determined in a definitive man- 

 ner by direct experiment. I had, in other respects, so much 

 the more interest in obtaining information on this subject, be- 

 cause, last summex*, having reached no deeper than 25 feet in 

 my boring attempts, the results which I obtained might, to a 



• PoggendorfPs Annalen, vol. lii. p. 184; and extract in Bibliothequc 

 TJniverselle de Geneve, 1841, p. 191. 



See also Professor Kries in Poggendorff's Annalen, 1841, No. 4 ; and 

 in Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, vol. xxxii. p. 198.--EDrr. 



