104: Cliarpeiitier's Essai/ on Glaciers. 



Although the soil of Egypt, which is entirely mud of the 

 Nile, is thus productive, so long as it is cultivated and wa- 

 tered, it is singular how speedily it is converted into desert, 

 whenever it is neglected by man. Salts are formed, and 

 especially saltpetre ; the rich soil becomes rapidly parched, 

 and falls into dust, which becomes the sport of the winds ; and 

 no vegetation takes root on the very spots which by the small- 

 est care would become remarkable for their fruitfulness. (From 

 the 1st Part of Russegger's Beisen in Europa^ Asien, and 

 Africa, 1841.) 



JSssat/ on the Glaciers and the Erratic Formation of the Basin of 

 the Bhone. By Jean de Charpentier.* 



In science, as at table, " tarde venientibus ossa :" it is of 

 consequence to a scientific man that he should not allow him- 

 self to be anticipated in the publication of his researches or 

 discoveries. The book we now announce is the fruit of many 

 years' labour, travel, and observation on glaciers and erratic 

 deposits ; it is only the development of ideas which the author 

 had summarily promulgated in a memoir in 1834 ; it is full of 

 mteresting and curious facts ; but it comes in the train of many 

 works of the same kind, which have appeared in 1840, and, 

 although the authors of these works have all scrupulously ac- 

 knowleged M. de Charpentier's merits in the matter, it must 

 be deficient more or less in the attractions of novelty. In the 

 February number of the Bihliotheque Universelle de Geneve for 

 1841, an account has been given of the works of MM. Godef- 

 froi, Agassiz, and Rendu, on the glaciers of Switzerland and 

 Savoy, and the general facts resulting from the phenomena 

 presented by glaciers are noticed in sufficient detail. We 

 may confine ourselves therefore, in this part of the subject, to 

 a brief notice of the principal points in the history of glaciers, 

 regarding which, M. Charpentier's opinion differs from that of 

 other geologists. The theories on the origin and development 



. * Essai 8ur Ics Glaciers et sur lo terrain crratiquc du bassin du Rhone, 

 par J. de Charpentier. Lausanne, 1841; 1 vol. in 8vo. 



