Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 54.djvu/373

Rh in his address as retiring president of the Association of American Geologists, in 1841, gave a broad and careful review of the drift phenomena in eastern North America, and referred to the work of Agassiz, Buckland, and Lyell with great interest, as having given him "a new geological sense" in observing these phenomena, and said, with prophetic foresight, "Henceforth, glacial action must form an important chapter in geology."

But the time was not ripe for the understanding and acceptance of the glacial theory as a later generation has come to know it. The studies of Agassiz and his confrères had been among glaciers upon mountain slopes, and hence, while many of the drift phenomena were strikingly accounted for, others were not and could not be. So it came to pass that, while Professor Hitchcock and others in this country were strongly impressed, they were not satisfied, and held for years an uncertain position. The glacial indications conformed in some aspects to the theory, but not in others; the striæ and groovings, instead of following valleys, all had a general trend to the southward, and the bowlders were carried across great depressions and deposited upon heights. How could these conditions be due to glaciers? Could ice flow uphill, or move long distances over level areas? These and other phenomena, such as the peculiar distribution of drift material, in "drumlin" ridges and the like, had no explanation. Hence, notwithstanding President Hitchcock's utterances above quoted, and his similar Postscript on the subject of drift and moraines, appended in the same year to his volume on the Geology of Massachusetts, we find him in 1843, when again addressing the Association of Geologists, adopting a modified tone, dwelling upon these points of difficulty, and seeking a compromise view, which he called "glacio-aqueous." The great influence also of Murchison and Lyell had been thrown into the scale in favor of the iceberg theory, and this fact doubtless had much to do with the slow development of true conceptions. Lyell visited America in 1842, and was present at the American Geologists' meeting, advocating the floating-ice doctrine, to which most of our observers already leaned; and so the views of Agassiz and the glacial school had to wait for a decade before they found general acceptance or even audience.

This, we may note in passing, Is but one marked instance out of many in the history of science, wherein the personal influence of eminent leaders has obstructed and retarded the advance of true knowledge. The whole recognition of the Cambrian system, as pre-Silurian and distinct, was suppressed and prevented for many years by Murchison's intense opposition to the views of Sedgwick. Similar facts might be cited in this country, did we care to mention names. Science can not claim, as is sometimes asserted, that it possesses or