REVIEWS 573 



duction to a series of books on the continents of the world. Physical features are 

 here described rather than explained ; geography is thus wisely delimited from 

 geology. Mr. Lyde regards the " political control " as providing "the dominant 

 note in the most important areas." The fact that the three parts of Poland 

 contradict his first page in every essential only makes the position of Poland 

 appear more melancholy and more exceptional. 



In the next page, the tetrahedral theory of earth-structure is adopted, as 

 explaining the grouping of land-areas in fairly high northern latitudes. On the 

 third page we have a discussion on technical nomenclature, in which it is wisely 

 urged that it is better to introduce a specialised term for a special thing, rather 

 than an existing word in a narrowed sense. Mr. Lyde justly objects to "a high" 

 and "alow" in meteorology; but he introduces us to "a wyr," instead of "an 

 anti-cyclone," which is only replacing a well-established technical term by another 

 that we tremble to pronounce. How did Robert Bruce's military engineers 

 pronounce "wyr"? And was this pronunciation the same on both sides of the 

 border ? Lies there yet at Lanercost or Douce Coeur a craftsman who can rise 

 to tell us? 



Mr. Lyde has a love of the picturesque in history, and this prefatory episode 

 is a foretaste. All through his book we are led off into delightful trains of thought ; 

 to complete the scene that he conjures up we must go from one of our bookshelves 

 to another, from Gibbon to Motley, from De Comines to Miller on the Balkans. 

 He holds himself, however, in great restraint, and the compression of some of his 

 sentences is almost too severe. "What we miscall Macedonia " (p. 149) is just 

 thrown out to make us think ; but the connection suggested between " the western 

 end of this old folded highland " and the formation of coal and salt (pp. 4 and 5) 

 remains, we must confess, entirely obscure. Mr. Lyde's facts are, as a rule, well 

 incorporated in paragraphs that reveal their interest and relationship. We are 

 sure that it revolts him to put in a footnote that " onions are exported to the value 

 of over ,£530,000 per annum." 



It seems ungrateful to question certain passages ; but what are we to under- 

 stand (p. 31) by "the normal activity of glaciers intermediate in character between 

 the dry rigidity of the tropics and the constant fluidity of the Polar regions"? 

 Why are the Polar regions fluid ; or can it be the glaciers or their activity that 

 show this character? Surely a glacier moves from other causes than fluidity? 

 And are glaciers more rigid in the tropics ? We still wonder. 



What, again, are the "volcanic upheavals" (p. 225) of Scafell, Helvellyn, 

 Snowdon, and Cader Idris, which have had an effect upon the scenery? Surely 

 it is the hardness of the igneous rocks that has given us their peaks and precipices. 

 The sentence that follows should probably not be laid to the author's score. 

 Something has certainly gone wrong with it, for we read that "the volcanic action, 

 which was probably due to the amount of water embedded in the sedimentary 

 'Silurian' rock, seems to have played some part in the damming of the glacial 

 valleys, as in the case of Derwentwater and Windermere." 



In a book so full of condensed but always suggestive information, it may be 

 easy to find small points that one would question. The fact that Homo heidelber- 

 gensis was found "in the Danube valley" (p. 45) would not show, as the author 

 implies, that man originated in valley-lands. He was really found, however, high 

 up at Mauer on the Rhine-wall, where he doubtless kept himself dry out of the 

 swampy flats below. The Tiber valley, again (p. 85), cannot have suggested to 

 the Romans that good roads should be made up river-valleys. Any one who has 

 followed the Via Flaminia from Prima Porta knows how little use it has found 



