Discovering the Ice Ages History of Science and Medicine Library
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Discovering the Ice Ages History of Science and Medicine Library VOLUME 37 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/hsml Discovering the Ice Ages International Reception and Consequences for a Historical Understanding of Climate By Tobias Krüger Translated by Ann M. Hentschel LEIDEn • bOSTON 2013 Title of the original German edition: Die Entdeckung der Eiszeiten, 2008 by Schwabe AG Verlag, Basel, Switzerland. Translated with generous grants from the Berne University Research Foundation and the Mercator Foundation Switzerland. Tobias Krüger is supported by the Swiss NCCR Climate Programme. Cover illustration: Nagelfluh (molasse conglomerate) Findling, near Knonau, Canton Zurich, © Tobias Krüger. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Krüger, Tobias, 1976- [Entdeckung der Eiszeiten. English] Discovering the ice ages : international reception and consequences for a historical understanding of climate / by Tobias Krüger ; translated by Ann M. Hentschel. pages cm. — (History of science and medicine library, ISSN 1872-0684 ; volume 37) Includes bibliographical references and indexes. ISBN 978-90-04-24169-5 (hardback : acid-free paper) — ISBN 978-90-04-24170-1 (e-book) 1. Geology, Stratigraphic—Pleistocene. 2. Glacial epoch. 3. Geology—History. 4. Climatology—History. I. Title. QE697.K7813 2013 551.7’92—dc23 2013016827 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface. ISSN 1872-0684 ISBN 978-90-04-24169-5 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-24170-1 (e-book) Copyright 2013 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers and Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Dedicated to the persons to whom I owe the most in life: My parents CONTENTS List of Figures ................................................................................................... xi Preface and Acknowledgments .................................................................. xvii 1 Introduction .............................................................................................. 1 1.1 Basic Preliminary Thoughts ........................................................ 1 1.2 The Issues ......................................................................................... 3 1.3 Relevance ......................................................................................... 4 1.4 Method .............................................................................................. 5 1.5 Structure ........................................................................................... 7 1.6 Sources .............................................................................................. 7 1.7 State of the Art in the Literature .............................................. 10 2 How Erratic Blocks Caught the Eye of Science .............................. 23 2.1 Giants, Trolls, and the Devil: Early Explanations ................ 23 2.2 Theoretical Diversity in Geology’s Heroic Age ..................... 24 2.3 Volcanic Bombs and Mudflows ................................................. 26 2.4 Monstrous, Horrific Floods ......................................................... 30 2.5 Ice and Debris ................................................................................. 38 2.6 “Nature’s Most Powerful Engines” ............................................ 46 2.6.1 A Genevan Geographer’s Excursion ......................... 46 2.6.2 Gruner’s Ice Mountains of Switzerland ................... 47 2.6.3 The First Glaciological Research Project ................. 48 2.6.4 De Saussure’s Trip through the Alps ........................ 55 2.6.5 Plastic Flow ...................................................................... 55 2.6.6 Ice as Tenacious as Pitch ............................................. 56 2.6.7 Reflections by the Scottish Private Scholar James Hutton ................................................................... 57 2.6.8 One Mathematician Draws His Conclusions ......... 63 2.6.9 A Scot Tours the Alps .................................................... 66 2.6.10 Erratic Blocks in the New World ............................... 68 2.6.11 Glaciers at the Antipodes ............................................. 70 2.6.12 Of Erratic Chunks and Extraterrestrials: A Bavarian Professor’s Unconventional Ideas ....... 71 2.6.13 Huge Piles of Granite .................................................... 78 2.6.14 Thoughts by Savvy Alpines .......................................... 78 2.7 Preliminary Conclusions ............................................................. 83 viii contents 3 Glacier Advances and Icy Theories: 1810–1830 ............................... 85 3.1 No Climate Determinism—Preamble about the Influence of Climate on Societal Behavior ................................................ 85 3.2 Wahlenberg’s Pre-Adamite Springtime Flood ...................... 88 3.3 Ice-Age Traces in Norway ........................................................... 91 3.4 The Engineer and the Ice Age ................................................... 97 3.5 Minister of Mining Goethe Has His Own Ideas ................... 109 3.6 Jameson’s Discovery of Moraines in Scotland ...................... 130 3.7 Cometary Impact, Deluge, and Ice Age: A Scottish Scholar Is Magnanimous ............................................................................. 132 3.8 How Esmark’s Theory Reached the German-Speaking Realm ................................................................................................ 137 3.9 Preliminary Conclusions about Ice-Age Theories of the 1820s ................................................................................................ 138 4 Glacier and Ice-Age Theories in the First Half of the 1830s ....... 141 4.1 Professor Bernhardi’s Polar Caps .............................................. 141 4.2 The Systematist .............................................................................. 148 4.3 Periods of Activation and Stagnation ...................................... 155 4.4 Conclusion on Ice-Age and Glacier Theories 1830–1836 ... 162 5 The Grand Synthesis ............................................................................... 165 5.1 Ode to the Ice Age or the End of a Friendship .................... 165 5.2 Preliminary Conclusions on the Agassiz/Schimper Synthesis ........................................................................................... 186 5.3 Excursus—between Popularization and Nationalism: “La théorie suisse des glaciers” .................................................. 188 6 International Reception of Glacial Theory ...................................... 191 6.1 France ................................................................................................ 191 6.1.1 Apprehension and Development of the Ice-Age Theory .................................................................................. 191 6.1.2 Preliminary Conclusions: Passive Opposition and Innovative Progress ......................................................... 239 6.2 The Theory’s Path to Great Britain .......................................... 244 6.2.1 A Scottish Journal Editor and Other Pathfinders ... 244 6.2.2 Agassiz’s 2,000-Mile Tour .............................................. 249 6.2.3 Three Papers before the Geological Society ............ 256 6.2.4 Objections and Criticisms ............................................. 259 6.2.5 Research on Glacial Geology Continues ................... 262 contents ix 6.2.6 The Two Most Influential Critics .............................. 266 6.2.7 The Submergence Theory or the Ice-Age Inundation ........................................................................ 272 6.2.8 The Beginnings of Glacial Research Overseas within the British Empire ............................................ 283 6.2.9 First Evidence of Older Ice Ages ............................... 286 6.2.10 Preliminary Conclusions about the Beginnings of Glacial Geology on the British Isles .................... 290 6.3 Ice-Age Research in Sweden ...................................................... 295 6.3.1 Between Fiery Furnaces and Icy Hypotheses ........ 295 6.3.2 Slideways to Errors and Misadventures .................. 298 6.3.3 Arctic Shells in Temperate Latitudes ....................... 305 6.3.4 The Ice Age Becomes Presentable Again ................ 307 6.3.5 Between Conditional Acceptance and Breakthrough ................................................................... 310 6.3.6 A Grade-School Inspector Makes the Ice Age Popular .............................................................................. 314 6.3.7 Scandinavian Inland Ice ..............................................