Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 45.djvu/52



EROSION OF LAKE BASINS.

AKES are distributed very unequally over the various parts of the world, and they also differ much in their position in relation to other physical peculiarities of the surface. Most of the great continents have a considerable number of lakes, many of great size, situated on plateaus or in central basins; while the northern parts of Europe and North America are thickly strewn with lakes of various dimensions, some on the plains, others in subalpine valleys, others again high up among the mountains, these latter being of small size and usually called tarns. The three classes of lakes last mentioned occur in the greatest profusion in glaciated districts, while they are almost absent elsewhere; and it was this peculiarity of general distribution, together with the observation that all the valley lakes of Switzerland and of our own country occurred in the track of the old glaciers, and in situations where the erosive power of the ice would tend to form rock-closed basins, that appears to have led the late Sir Andrew Ramsay to formulate his theory of ice-erosion to explain them. He was further greatly influenced by the extreme difficulty or inadequacy of any possible alternative theory—a difficulty which we shall see remains as great now as at the time he wrote.

This question of the origin of the lake basins of the glaciated regions is especially interesting on account of the extreme divergence of opinion that still prevails on the subject. While the general facts of glaciation, the extent and thickness of the old glaciers and ice-sheets, and the work they did in distributing huge erratics many hundred miles from their sources and in covering thousands of square miles of country with thick layers of bowlder clay and drift, are all admitted as beyond dispute, geologists are still divided into two hostile camps when the origin of lake basins is concerned; and the opposing forces seem to be approximately equal. Having for many years given much attention to this problem, which has had for me a kind of fascination, I am convinced that the evidence in favor of glaciation has not been set forth in all its cumulative force, while many of the arguments against it seem to me to be either illogical or beside the point at issue. I have also to adduce certain considerations which have hitherto been overlooked, but which appear to me to afford very strong if not conclusive evidence for erosion as against any alternative theory yet proposed. I shall, therefore, first set forth, as