The Forms of Water in Clouds and Rivers, Ice and Glaciers quotes

1.

Every occurrence in Nature is preceded by other occurrences which are its causes, and succeeded by others which are its effects.

The human mind is not satisfied with observing and studying any natural occurrence alone, but takes pleasure in connecting every natural fact with what has gone before it, and with what is to come after it.

Like the rain, it comes from the clouds, which, as before, can be traced to vapour raised by the sun. Without solar fire we could have no atmospheric vapour, without vapour no clouds, without clouds no snow, and without snow no glaciers.

Curious then as the conclusion may be, the cold ice of the Alps has its origin in the heat of the sun.

§ 3. The Waves of Light.

We have here an example of the manner in which phenomena, apparently remote, are connected together in this wonderful system of things that we call Nature.

You cannot study a snow-flake profoundly without being led back by it step by step to the constitution of the sun.

It is thus throughout Nature. All its parts are interdependent, and the study of any one part completely would really involve the study of all.

You cannot study a snow-flake profoundly without being led back by it step by step to the constitution of the sun. It is thus throughout Nature.

All its parts are interdependent, and the study of any one part completely would really involve the study of all.

§ 5. Experiments to prove the foregoing Statements.

80.

In science what is true for the small is true for the large.

Thus by combining the conditions observed on a large scale in nature we obtain on a small scale the phenomena of atmospheric clouds.

91.

But who ventures to call the forces of nature blind? In reality, when we speak thus we are describing our own condition.

The blindness is ours; and what we really ought to say, and to confess, is that our powers are absolutely unable to comprehend either the origin or the end of the operations of nature.

… which we thus picture to ourselves effects beyond the range of the senses is what philosophers call the Imagination, and in the effort of the mind to seize upon the unseen architecture of crystals, we have an example of the "scientific use" of this faculty.

Without imagination we might have critical power, but not creative power in science.

§ 11. Architecture of Lake Ice.

But the delight it imparts is heightened by the fact that we did not come expressly to see it; we came to instruct ourselves about the glacier, and this high enjoyment is an incident of our labour.

You will find it thus through life; without honest labour there can be no deep joy.

§ 17. The Talèfre and the Jardin. Work among the Crevasses.

170. But in neither the first line nor the second were we able to push our measurements quite across the glacier. Why?

In attempting to do one thing we are often taught another, and thus in science, if we are only steadfast in our work, our very defeats are converted into means of instruction.

We at first planted our theodolite on the lateral moraine of the Mer de Glace, expecting to be able to command the glacier from side to side. But we are now undeceived;

173. Here we have cause for reflection, and facts are comparatively worthless if they do not provoke this exercise of the mind. It is because facts of nature are not isolated but connected, that science, to follow them, must also form a connected whole.

The mind of the natural philosopher must, as it were, be a web of thought corresponding in all its fibres with the web of fact in nature.

174. Let us, then, ascend to a point which commands a good view of this portion of the Mer de Glace. The ice-river we see is not straight but curved, and its curvature is from the Montanvert;

Thus far we have a perfect verification of the guess which prompted us to make these measurements. You will here observe that the "guesses" of science are not the work of chance, but of thoughtful pondering over antecedent facts.

The guess is the "induction" facts, to be ratified or exploded by the test of subsequent experiment.

178.

and the Arveiron of to-day was probably due to the gradual drainage of the glacier. There was now no danger of entering the vault, for the ice seemed as firm as marble. In the cavern we were bathed by blue light.

The strange beauty of the place suggested magic, and put me in mind of stories about fairy caves which I had read when a boy.

At the source of the Arveiron our winter visit to the Mer de Glace ends; next morning your deputy was on his way to London.

250. We closely scan the ice, and after an hour's strict search we discover the cause of the reports.

They announce the birth of a crevasse.

Through a pool upon the glacier we notice air bubbles ascending, and find the bottom of the pool crossed by a narrow crack, from which the bubbles issue. Eight and left from this pool we trace the young fissure through long distances.

In the production of natural phenomena two things always come into play, the intensity of the acting force, and the time during which it acts.

Make the intensity great, and the time small, and you have sudden convulsion; but precisely the same apparent effect may be produced by making the intensity small, and the time great.

This truth is strikingly illustrated by the Alpine ice-falls and crevasses; and many geological phenomena, which at first sight suggest violent convulsion, may be really produced in the selfsame almost imperceptible way.

… to mention them in the same breath with Count Rumford, but I am told that in our own day there are people who profess to find the comforts of a religion in a superstition lower than any that has hitherto degraded the civilized human mind.

So that the happiness of a faith and the truth of a faith are two totally different things.

324. Life and the conditions of life are in necessary harmony. This is a truism, for without the suitable conditions life could not exist. But both life and its conditions set forth the operations of inscrutable Power. We know not its origin;

A lake of the loveliest blue is thus formed, which reaches quite to the base of the ice-cliffs, saps them, as the Arctic waves sap the Greenland glaciers, and receives from them the broken masses which it has undermined.

As we look down upon the lake, small icebergs sail over the tranquil surface, each resembling a snowy swan accompanied by its shadow.

350. This is the beautiful little lake of Märgelin, or, as the Swiss here call it, the Märgelin See. You see that splash, and immediately afterwards hear the sound of the plunging ice.

377.

It is the nature and tendency of the human mind to look backward and forward; to endeavour to restore the past and predict the future.

Thus endowed, from data patiently and painfully won, we recover in idea a state of things which existed thousands, it may be millions, of years before the history of the human race began.

… in my opinion, be an error of omission of the gravest kind, and which, if habitual, would ensure the ultimate decay of natural knowledge, to neglect verifying our ideas, and giving them outward reality and substance when the means of doing so are at hand.

In science thought, as far as possible, ought to be wedded to fact.

This was attempted by Rendu, and in part accomplished by Agassiz and Forbes.

Neither the ice so melted nor the water which results from its liquefaction can fall below 32° Fahrenheit. The freezing point of water and the melting point of ice touch each other, as it were, at this temperature.

A hair's-breadth lower water freezes; a hair's-breadth higher ice melts.

427. But if the ice could be caused to melt without this supply of solar heat, a temperature lower than that of ordinary thawing ice would result.

444. You may learn from this discussion that in scientific matters, as in all others, there is room for differences of opinion.

The frame of mind to be cultivated here is a suspension of judgment as long as the meaning remains in doubt.

It may be that Faraday's action and Thomson's action come both into play.

458. This, however, is, at bottom, the language of strong opinion merely, not that of demonstration; and in science opinion ought to content us only so long as positive proof is unattainable. The love of repose must not prevent us from seeking this proof.

There is no sterner conscience than the scientific conscience, and it demands, in every possible case, the substitution for private conviction of demonstration which shall be conclusive to all.

459. Let us, for example, be shown a case in which the stratification of the névé is prolonged into the glacier; let us see the planes of bedding and the planes of lamination existing side by side, and still indubitably distinct.

We advance to the wall, remove the surface, and are rewarded by the discovery underneath it of the true blue veins. They, moreover, are vertical, while the bedding is horizontal.

Bruce, as you know, was defeated in many a battle, but he persisted and won at last.

Here, upon the Furgge glacier, you also have fought and won your little Bannockburn.

475. Thus without quitting the glaciers themselves, we establish the connexion between pressure and structure. Is there anything in our previous scientific experience with which these facts may be connected?

The new knowledge of nature must always strike its roots into the old, and spring from it as an organic growth.

§ 66. Slate Cleavage and Glacier Lamination.

493.

Here then we part. And should we not meet again, the memory of these days will still unite us.

Give me your hand. Good bye.