On the Hypothesis of Ice Ages Suggested by Captain E. S. Gernet

Abstract

This paper is devoted to the causes of initiation and development of the Quaternary glaciation and climatic fluctuations connected with it. There are many hypotheses on this problem. The most interesting of them are those suggesting the evolution of glaciers and ice sheets, and variation of climate as a self-regulating process. The first person to offer a definite mechanism for such self-regulation was the Russian sailor, Captain E. S. Gernet, whose book about this was published in 1930. The book is of great scientific importance, but so far few people appear to have known anything about it. This paper gives a brief summary of the book, shows the similarity between the main ideas of Captain Gernet and the American geologists, W. L. Stokes, M. Ewing and W. L. Donn (the theory of the two latter authors has become well known recently), and justifies naming this concept after Gernet and Stokes in honour of the men who first proposed it.