I40 Mr. H. H. Howorth on 



Tyndall acknowledges that below 32° ice does not possess 

 the property of regelation, and it has been proved that a 

 glacier is always moving in all its parts in winter as well as 

 in summer, below as well as above. It means that the 

 interior of a glacier must, in order to justify Professor 

 Tyndall's theory, be above the freeing point or at the 

 freezing point in winter, which is completely contrary to the 

 facts as we know them, in the glaciers of Greenland and 

 high latitudes, which have been shewn to have a considerable 

 winter motion. 



These considerations seem fatal to Professor Tyndall's 

 theory, and its breakdown made men revert again to Forbes's 

 views, notwithstanding the apparently insuperable objection 

 contained in Moseley's experiments. Among these cham- 

 pions of the Scotch philosopher was Dr. M. Williams. 

 "We have direct evidence that ice of great thick" 

 ness," he says, "actual glaciers, may bend to a consi- 

 derable curvature before breaking. This is seen very 

 strikingly when the uncrevassed ice-sheet of a slightly 

 inclined nM suddenly reaches a precipice and is thrust 

 over it. If Mr. Geikie were right {i.e.y if ice were a rigid 

 and not a plastic body) the projecting cornices thus formed 

 should stand straight out, and then when the transverse 

 strain due to the weight of this rigid overhang exceeded 

 the resistance of tenacity, it should break off short, exposing 

 a face at right angles to the general surface of the supported 

 body of ice. . ♦ ♦ ♦ . Some very fine examples of 

 such ice cornices are visible from the ridge separating the 

 Handspikjen Fjelde from the head of the Jostedal, where a 

 fine view of the great nM or sneefornd is obtained. This 

 side of the nM terminates in precipitous rock walls ; at the 

 foot of one of these is a dreary lake, the Styggewand. The 

 overflow of the nev^ here forms great bending sheets that 

 reach a short way down, and then break off and drop as 

 small icebergs into the lake." {Quart. Journ. of Science^ 

 VII. 220 — 221). 



