Introduction

Abstract

The movement of glaciers is a phenomenon that has been known for more than four centuries, and the fact that ice in the world once covered areas vastly greater than it does at present has been widely accepted for over 100 years. Gradually, it has come to be recognised that moving ice is one of the major sculptors of the earth’s surface; indeed, evidence is accumulating to suggest that, quantitatively, it may be the most potent agent of terrestrial erosion. The papers and extracts in this anthology have been selected to span the period beginning with some of the earliest pioneer investigations into glacier movement and glacier erosion processes, and leading up to the research of the last two decades in which great advances in our knowledge of those processes have been achieved.