Frozen in time

A small boy clad in Chilprufe vest and Startrite sandals perches atop a lump of seaweed on a glacier in Switzerland. The date is summer 1927. What's going on here?

Aged 5, The Old Man accompanied his already-separated parents to visit his (and my) father's step-mother in Geneva, a trip aimed very possibly at giving the appearance they were still united, almost certainly in the hope that 'Granny', recently widowed and now holder of the Russian family purse strings, would accede to financing the inconvenient child's schooling. (This she did, but true to her Hibernian roots, insisted that only a Scottish education would do, with the result that the poor lad was dispatched from Euston three times a year on the long journey north.)

But the seaweed? As mentioned in an earlier blip my father was Alpinist, familiar with all the climbs around the Valais area. The Aletsch glacier was a particular favourite and, being a bit of a joker too, he hatched the idea of depositing some seaweed on this land-locked icefield where in time (yet?) to come its emergence would confuse one and all. His small son was in on the plot and would reminisce about it for the rest of his long life. (I never asked him how he got up to the glacier but I assume he was carried on someone's back.)

Now that global warming is taking its toll upon the glaciers of Switzerland,  all manner of long-lost items are emerging from the ice. If you hear of puzzled scientists struggling to explain the appearance of marine vegetation,  please point them in the direction of this blip.