June^ 1834. 



GLACIERS. 



287 



at every portion of the mountain as havings during the gradual 

 rising of the land^ been successively exposed to the action 

 of these combined forces. 



It is^ perhaps, useless to speculate on the effects of earth- 

 quakes without some positive data. But as we find in the 

 immediate neighbourhood of that great glacier, which stands 

 in the latitude of the Alps, Byron* mentioning with surprise 

 the quantities of sea-shells lying on all the hill-tops (a fact 

 which may be taken as a proof of recent continental eleva- 

 tions) ; and Bulkeley,t in his narrative, saying, This day 

 we felt four great earthquakes, three of which were very 

 terrible;^' we may feel well assured, that the same power, 

 which in Chile causes such vast masses of rock and soil to fall 

 from the sea-clifFs, has oftentimes precipitated fragments far 

 more immense, of a mass traversed by great fissures, already 

 in motion, and resting on an inclined plane. I cannot imagine 

 any scene of more terrific violence, than the waves produced 

 by such a fall : we know that they are very bad from the 

 mere oscillation, consequent on the movements of the ground ; 

 but in this case I can readily believe that the water would be 

 fairly beaten back out of the deepest inlet, and then return- 

 ing with an overwhelming force, would whirl about rocks of 

 vast size like so much chaff. 



In after ages, with a climate modified by the process of 

 such physical changes as are now going on throughout the 

 greater part of this continent, the effects which had been pro- 

 duced by these glaciers would appear inexplicable, to a person 

 who doubted the possibility of their occurrence in such lati- 

 tudes. He would see in the most retired and protected val- 

 leys (the present channels) beaches composed of great 

 rounded boulders, such as those heaped up on the shore of 

 the most turbulent ocean. Then perhaps he would speculate, 

 either that the outer chain of mountains had been elevated 



* Byron's Narrative of the Shipwreck of the Wager, 

 t Bulkeley's and Cummin's Faithful Narrative of the loss of the Wager. 

 The earthquake happened August 25, 1741. 



