In this whimsical piece from 1920, the Anglo-French writer and historian Hilaire Belloc muses upon the melting of the ice that formed the continents as we now know them. “What a vision it must have been whenever it took place!” he exclaims, imagining the spectacle. Belloc’s study is not based upon scientific evidence, and he does not connect the concept of melting ice to global warming, as we would today. He marvels at the speed at which the last ice supposedly melted, a “jerk” that was “revolutionary” and “catastrophic”. If the sea rose, as he writes of some suggestions, “then what a sight it must have been!” is his response. For all the exclamations, Belloc understands the great force of change that nature has brought on the human world, and wonders at all that has been lost in the process.
I wish I had been there when the ice melted; in the days when the great river valleys were formed, when the rich meadows were laid down from the mud of the flooded rivers, and when the gravels were rolled along, forming beaches one upon the other as the waters subsided, and when Northern Europe was carved.
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