13S 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



timed, and unfortunately too needful. All remon- 

 strance on the subject seems to be vain. In former 

 numbers of Science-Gossip have been most 

 judicious appeals to botanists to stay the work of 

 destruction ; and in 'Nature of May 22, 1873, was a 

 very forcible protest by the Hon. Sec. of the East 

 Kent Natural History Society (Mr. Gulliver, 

 E.E.S.) ac^ainst the evil, which is mainly caused by 

 the cupidity of tratiickin,? collectors, and, strange as 

 it may seem, by the conduct of some provincial 

 societies and other parties, all witli the best inten- 

 tions. Certain Natural History Clubs are regularly 

 in the habit of offering rewards to llieir members 

 for the best and largest collections of the scarce 

 and other plants of the district, thus holding out a 

 premium for the destruction of the rarer species ! 

 Indeed, I have knovi-n more than one instance in 

 which a candidate for this kind of distinction has 

 actually destroyed all the remaining plants of a pre- 

 cious tuft or group of a species in order to defeat his 

 competitors. Eut tliis is by no means so surprising 

 as the fact that certain societies, mostly composed 

 of educated persons, should be so woefully ignorant 

 as to suppose that thus the interests of Science can 

 be advanced ;" in order," as their preamble often 

 runs, "to promote the cause of botany among the 

 members and their families." As if botany con- 

 sisted in the grubbing up of plants, drying, and 

 calling them by hard names ; whereas premiums for 

 the best collections of such useful orders as Gra- 

 miuacea; and Amentifera>, with illustrative draw- 

 ings and dissections of the distinctive characters, 

 the taxonomic value of pollen-grains and other 

 cells, and of raphides and other plant-crystals, 

 would afford good tests of the diligence and acquire- 

 ments of the candidates, promote the knowledge of 

 botany, and lead to no injury or destruction of rare 

 species. Indeed, there are numberless subjects^ 

 such as Dimorphism, equally available and excellent. 

 Uut, at all events, the present wanton and fatal 

 rage against our most precious favourites should be 

 sternly opposed ; and it is to be hoped that 

 Science-Gossip will continue to lend its powerful 

 help to this end. — Fhilophytoii. 



GEOLOGY. 



Polar Glaciation.— At a meeting of the Geo- 

 logical Society, a paper on this subject was read by 

 J. P. Campbell, Esq., P.G.S. The author referred 

 to a statement of Prof. Agassiz, to the eU'ect that he 

 supposed the northern hemisphere to have been 

 covered in glacial times from the pole to the equator 

 l)y a solid cap of ice. He described his observations 

 made during thirty-three years, and especially those of 

 lastsummer, when he travelled from England past the 

 North Cape to Archangel, and thence by land to 

 the Caucasus, Crimea, Greece, and the South of 



Europe. His principal results were as follows : — 

 In advancing southwards through Russia a range cf 

 low drift hills occurs about 60° N. lat., which may 

 perhaps form part of a circular terminal moraine left 

 by a retreating polar ice-cap ; large grooved and 

 polished stones of northern origin reach 55° N. lat. at 

 Nijni Novgorod, but further east and south no such 

 stones could be seen. The highest drift-beds along 

 the whole course of the Volga seem to have been 

 arranged by water moving southwards. In America 

 northern boulders are lost about 39', in Germany 

 about 55°, and in Eastern Russia about 56° N. lat., 

 where the trains end and fine gravel and sand cover 

 the solid rocks. Ice-action, in the form either of 

 glaciers or of icebergs, is necessary to account for 

 the transport of large stones over the plains, and 

 the action of moving water to account for drift 

 carried further south. There are no indications of 

 a continuous solid ice-cap flowing southward over 

 Ijlaius in Europe and America to, or nearly to, the 

 equator ; but a great deal was to be found on shore 

 to prove ancient ocean circulation of equatorial and 

 polar currents, like those which now move in the 

 Atlantic, and much to prove the former existence of 

 very large local ice-systems in places where no 

 glaciers now exist. In the discussion which fol- 

 lowed, Prof. Ramsay said the question was whether 

 there were ice-caps moving towards the equator, or 

 whether the configuration of the mountain regions 

 might have produced the observed efFects. He 

 expressed himself satisfied that the present con. 

 figuration would account, at least to a great extent, 

 for the changes which have taken place. The 

 boulders found on the great plain of Russia might 

 have been conveyed either directly by glaciers, or 

 by icebergs broken off the ice-cap itself. Boulders 

 have been seen 40 miles north of the Caucasus, 

 proving the existence there of great ancient glaciers. 

 The absence of boulders on the plains of Siberia was 

 to be accounted for by the absence to the aorth o 

 Siberia of high land from which such boulders could 

 be carried. Prof. Hughes thought that the theory 

 of ice-caps spreading in both hemispheres from the 

 poles to near the equator hardly deserved discussion, 

 seeing that no facts which could not be otherwise 

 explained had been adduced in support of it, whilst 

 it involved great physical ditiiculties, and was quite 

 inconsistent with the continuity of the forms of life 

 Irom pre- to post-glacial times. He always under- 

 stood that the boulders of N. Germany and W. 

 Russia could be traced to that mountain-district, 

 and that there was proof that the ice travelled to the 

 north as well as to the south. Unless, therefore, 

 the author showed that some of the boulders could 

 have been derived only from ciicumpolar regions^ 

 he could not see the necessity of calling in anything 

 more than changes of level of various parts of the 

 northern hemisphere along well-known lines of ele- 

 vation and depression to explain all the phenomena 



