Part 8

As to rainfall if that originates these streams, and if so, how is their flow kept so uniform, or is it from a steady, unfailing source, as would come from the inside ocean of supply?

Lakes of enormous depth exist in the Sierra Nevada, and Rocky Mountains, as Pyramid Lake, Donner, Tahoe and Crater Lakes. In our Adirondacks are thousands of lakes, in Vermont and New Hampshire, and in the White Mountain region, throughout the mountain portions of Maine, in West Virginia, and the Carolinas, and in other high and mountainous sections lakes abound. As we come to the low country there are few witnesses to call, as the only body of water worth mentioning is in Utah, that lake being salt and below the level of the ocean.

While the subject of this chapter is introduced under the heading of springs, it may seem out of place to bring in these great lakes, assuming that they are of the same class. But there is no doubt whatever of their being nothing more or less than mammoth springs.

Next to the great lake system of the world, may be called in evidence the atolls so prevalent in the southern Pacific Ocean and growing also in other places on the globe. These peculiar features appear to have been built up from the tops of submarine mountains or old craters that have been filled with fresh water, from which structures of coral have grown till they reached the surface. The formation of these atolls being generally elongated, or in chains like mountain ranges, is suggestive of the same influence in their inception as the upheaval of mountain chains on land surfaces by hydraulic pressure.

This may be a good place to ask where the fresh water supply comes from to produce these atolls. That they are produced by fresh water there can be no question, as the work of coral is never performed without an abundance of this element to build through. That the bottom of the ocean has many subterranean rivers nobody will dispute. That nearly every island in the ocean has springs of fresh water, none can deny. Where does it come from? Many of these islands have thermal springs, like Iceland with its geysers of many varieties. Some with common fresh water, and nearby springs of mineral water. One familiar to this region is Block Island with both fresh water and mineral springs, and little lakes on the high ground alive with fresh water fish. Are they supplied with rain water?

Mount Desert is a very good witness to call. Here is an island eighteen miles in diameter surrounded by salt water with an elevation of 1,800 feet, and 1,200 feet above the ocean are three fine lakes, Eagle Lake, Crooked Lake, and Echo Lake. In which lakes are trout weighing eight or ten pounds. On this small island are to be found thousands of springs pouring out from every crack and crevice. The water is pure and clear as in all such cases. Where does it come from? No more generous gift to man and all animated nature, has been bestowed by Providence than the universal distribution of springs all over the world.

Within twenty rods of the top of Mount Washington, the highest peak in the New England States, flows out a copious spring of water. The whole mountain system is full of springs and lakes. The entire Adirondack region is in the same condition. It is safe to leave it to the reader who has ever been out of sight of the smoke of his own chimney to think of the abundance of instances where he has seen lakes and springs on the tops of high hills, where no shed water to any extent could reach them, and wonder how they came there.

To assume that rains sink into the ground and form water supplies, seems incredible when the experience of any man who has ever dug a well or sunk a shaft in a mountain, or tunneled under a hill ought to disprove such an idea at once. As we dig down we always meet water, and the deeper we get the more we find. Where does the water from the surface turn around to come back? Some of the water coming up is salt, some fresh, some hot, but mostly of a uniform coolness of about fifty degrees.

GLACIERS.

We hear a great deal said about the age of Glaciers. This is assuming that the Earth has at some time been in a condition to be almost uninhabitable, as evidences of this Glacial influence seem to be reported from all parts of the globe.

As the theory of a warmer climate having existed in primeval times and that the Earth is and has been for ages cooling off hardly leaves a place for a universal period of Glaciers.

It hardly seems rational that the vast accumulation of flora to produce the coal deposits and sustain the wonderful specimens of animal and reptile growth could have been interrupted by a period of ice. If so, the earth in its present condition shows evidence of growing warmer instead of cooling off.

It is by the writer seriously doubted that the many evidences attributed to glaciers can be charged to their influence.

Where large rocks are found foreign to anything in their immediate surroundings and similar to formations at quite long distances away, the explanation that the straggling specimens were carried there by glaciers is not necessarily conclusive.

There may be many instances where such evidences are the work of glaciers, but it does not seem as if an ice age were needful to produce the changes of rock, or to show the markings on rocks claimed to have been caused by glacial abrasions. Icebergs can produce and explain every such feature as is claimed for the glacier, and there seems to be little reason to doubt that similar evidences such as are imputed to glaciers are constantly going on as much at the present day as in any remote age in the past.

There can be no doubt that icebergs have existed in all time from the earliest movement of the Earth’s machinery.

As explained in treating of icebergs, an area of extent equal to some of our smaller States frozen to a depth of thousands of feet breaks up and floats away from the polar oceans. Presuming an iceberg large as the State of Rhode Island to start off, which is very likely a small estimate of the size of many, such berg being exposed to thawing winds and the sun’s rays until thousands of miles away from its starting point, and after all these exposures is often a mass of 300 or more feet high and 2,000 feet deep. Imagine the weight and force of such a body striking the peak of some submarine mountain, the top of a hill with the momentum produced by wind and tide. There tops could as easily be wiped off and carried long distances, as a man can strike off the top of a measure of grain, and leave the same marks attributed to glaciers.

These great masses of rock and soil supposed to be transferred from their original deposit are carried long distances till melting has loosened a hold, and they are dropped to the bottom of the ocean and left for the wonderment and surmise of the future as to how they got there. This process of wiping off high points of submarine lands must be going on just as much at the present time as ever in the past, and seems a very wise and cheap system of dredging instituted by Providence.

With the reasoning to follow of how the Earth obtains and maintains its warmth an ice age would seem an impossibility and absurdity.

WHAT PRODUCES A GLACIER?

Here again the influence of Springs is called into service. As all the hills and mountains, it is here claimed, are the results of water aided by centrifugal force, therefore the hills and mountains become the reservoirs of supply for all the lower parts of the Earth. This arrangement of Nature provided the means for producing a Glacier. At high altitudes in the mountains, whether in the frigid zone or in the temperate, break forth springs; coursing down the mountain side to the valleys, the waters soon become aërated so as to freeze. Springs from different ranges and neighboring heights contribute their streams, all commingling in the deep cañons and freezing in a mass. With the accumulations of snow and rain, this body grows until in time, by the constant supply from the springs, rain and snow, the mountain gorges are filled however wide and large they may be.

This monstrous aggregation of ice must of course seek a lower point by its enormous weight and constant accumulation on top, and naturally begins to crawl down the valley grade. The first inception of a glacier is spring water, which with other contributions named ultimately produces what may be called a river of ice.

Under the ice river is always flowing a stream of water, and many air holes and openings are found upon the surface at different points, no doubt produced by the influence of spring water coming in of temperature above freezing or at the usual fifty-two degrees, about the average of fresh water springs in all latitudes. This conglomeration of influences to make a glacier shows the absurdity of having such solid masses break off, as claimed to be seen by Arctic explorers, large enough to remain intact well down into the Atlantic Ocean. As these mountain ravines fill up, of course the waters involve and cover with ice, every rock and tree, and all such objects in the way must necessarily be carried to some lower point and ultimately left. This faculty of a glacier has given it credit for performing all such apparent transitions, while icebergs which evidently do 1,000 times this amount of work are getting much the smaller share of credit.

It has been reported by sailors in the region of icebergs that by observations taken during a few months, they perceptibly grow many feet higher, which goes to prove the claim that they are constantly being added to from underneath. With change of season, these monsters are floated away from their moorings, toward the Equator to cool and freshen the main oceans, produce electric currents of air, become the wonder and terror of ocean travel, and melting away under tropical suns; or on the other hand, some may seek the interior and contribute themselves to the cooling of the waters that manifest themselves in refreshing springs all over the Earth.

There were newspaper reports of large masses of ice being thrown out during the great eruption in the Island of Java, but such statements may do better for newspaper items than to sustain an argument in this work. How can this equable condition of spring water, with its delicious coolness adjusted to all seasons and tastes, be accounted for if it does not come practically from one common source? Will some scientist answer?

XI.

CAVES.

These peculiar freaks in the Earth are nothing to excite much curiosity or wonder. It is rare to find caves only in limestone formations which by long contact with water gradually wash away and leave monstrous chambers that have formerly been a solid mass.