Frisch's Man in the Holocene
It is idiotic to write out in one's own hand (in the evenings by candlelight) things already in print. Why not use scissors to cut out items that are worth remembering and deserve a place on the wall? Geiser is surprised that he did not think of this before. There are scissors in the house; all he has to do is find them. Quite apart from the fact that print is easier to read than an old man's handwriting—though he has taken the trouble to use block letters—no one has that much time.
Geological formations, layers that are clearly distinguished from the stratifications beneath and above them by the petrified animals and plants (see Characteristic Fossils) within them and that represent a (stratigraphic) unit. Among these belong the igneous rocks, which evolved at the same time. Related G. F. evolving successively are bracketed together in formation groups. Formations and formation groups reflect periods of the earth's history and are in consequence used as descriptions of time, the G. F. in the sense of periods, the formation groups in the sense of geological eras.
The glaciers of the Ice Age transformed these mountain ranges by acting on peaks and valleys according to new principles. Ravines, niches, sinkholes, cirques (basinlike hollows) were carved out at the head of the valleys, and the peaks, already shaped into ridges, sharpened still further. The massive rivers of ice transformed the valleys themselves into broad, U-shaped troughs. Large glaciers exerted more pressure than small ones, so that the main valleys generally lie deeper than the subsidiary ones. In many parts of the Alps individual mountains, all of them once covered with glaciers, reveal traces, not only of the grinding and polishing effect of glaciers, but also of erosion as a result of splitting or fracturing: round, knobbed slopes standing out against the sharp and jagged ridges that the glaciers left untouched, on flatter surfaces basins forming shallow lakes, features known as roches moutonnées, outcrops of rock with smooth reflecting surfaces, frequently striated by rough stones, scarred glacial scourings, here and there moraines in the form of dams, more often valley flanks adorned with moraines.
Such complicated structures are the result of prolonged development. Like all other mountain ranges formed in the same period (Alpine), this process extends over a whole series of geolog. formations and can be divided up into various fold-forming phases. The first orogenic movements occurred at the height of the Triassic period, also the Liassic. Several marked phases occurred in the Late Cretaceous and in the Tertiary, and movements have been continuing through the Diluvian (see Ice Age) up to the present day.
The diluvian ice sheet which rose even above the lower passes, leaving only the highest peaks jutting out like islands, did not begin to disappear until the arrival of the warm interglacial period, and disappeared completely only in the postglacial. It was then transformed into the present-day valley glaciers, hanging glaciers on the upper slopes, cirque glaciers in the hollows; a number of plateau glaciers have also been formed. This recent type of glaciation, now swiftly retreating, is responsible, along with the peak formations, the valleys and their openings, the crevices and ravines, the waterfalls cascading over the trough walls, and the lakes, for the remarkable scenic beauty of the Alps. The glacial undermining of the slopes combined with the disappearance of glacial buttressing has led to many landslides. The basinlike character of the trough valleys has been to some extent obliterated by erosion of the higher peaks and the consequent transfer of rock to the lower regions. This is the cause of marked silting in the larger valleys, where the mud flow frequently presents a danger to human settlements.
What Elsbeth would have said about these notes on the wall, growing daily more numerous, whether she would have put up with thumbtacks stuck in the paneling, is an idle question—
Geiser is a widower.
Comments