Next55. Geikie, James (1839-1915)
The Great Ice Age and its Relation to the Antiquity of Man. London: W. Isbister & Co., 1874.
A glacier of Northern Greenland, from James Geikie, The Great Ice Age, 1874
The Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica, from James Geikie, The Great Ice Age, 1874
James Geikie’s The Great Ice Age really lies beyond the chronological boundaries of the exhibition, but it provides such a wonderful synthesis of the themes we have presented that we are happy to include it.
Geikie makes a strong argument for the glacial theory, maintaining that the erratic boulders, striated rocks, and roches moutonnées that are found scattered all over England and Wales can only be explained by prehistoric glaciers. They are proof of an Ice Age, and he proclaims that fact in the very title of his book.
And how are we to reconstruct that Ice Age? We do so by calling on our new knowledge of the polar and alpine regions of the earth. The great Humboldt Glacier in Greenland and the vast Ross Ice Sheet of Antarctica, along with the smaller glaciers of the Alps, can help us reconstruct a world that we can otherwise only dimly infer from the evidence left behind.
In Geikie’s book, the ice of the north, the ice of the Alps, and the ice of the south become the vehicles through which we are able to view the ice of the past. The Victorian romance with ice has produced a deeper understanding of the history of planet Earth.
