466 NATURAL SCIENCE. JUNE, 
THE GLaAcIAL NIGHTMARE AND THE FLoop. A second appeal to common sense 
from the extravagance of some recent geology. By Sir Henry H. Howorth, 
K.C.I.E., M.P., F.G.S. 2vols. 8vo. Pp. xxviiand 920. London: Sampson 
Low & Co., 1893. Price 30s. 
Sir Henry Howorth, in the two volumes which now he before us, 
stands forth as the champion of an almost universal deluge. It is 
not, he is careful to explain, the deluge of Noah; but it appears to 
be a considerably worse one, which exterminated the mammoth and 
could transport erratic blocks as large as houses across country for 
distances of many leagues. In fact the book is a nine-hundred page 
supplement to his bulky volume on the Mammoth and the Flood, and 
is to be followed by still another one. It is not altogether easy to 
understand the reason of the appearance of this mass of undigested 
extracts. The new book seems to be intended as a sort of homeo- 
pathic remedy for the ‘Glacial Nightmare’’; but, unlike most 
homeopaths, the author, instead of using a small dose, attempts to 
cure by the exhibition of a far more serious incubus than the one we 
are suffering from. 
The method adopted in these volumes is to put together under 
several heads extracts from various opinions as to the mode of 
formation of the Drift or Diluvium. We thus find in the first three 
chapters quotations from writers between 1719 and 1840, who referred 
the transportation of erratic blocks to the agency of water. Then 
follow chapters on the champions of icebergs, and of glaciers, and 
two more on the “ growth and culmination of the glacial nightmare.” 
We read next a chapter.on the ‘alleged recurrence of glacial epochs 
and on supposed inter-glacial beds,’ followed by others entitled 
‘appeals to transcendental physics andastronomy ”’ and “‘ meteorology.” 
Chapters XI. to XVII. represent, apparently, the views in favour 
with the author, for they contain selected extracts from the evidence 
of such witnesses as could testify in any degree against recurrent ice 
ages, against a glacial period in the southern hemisphere, against the 
power of ice to do anything in particular, and against the occurrence 
at any period in regions now temperate of accumulations of ice other 
than large glaciers. Chapter XVIII., the author’s own, is entitled 
‘‘The distribution of the drift can only be explained by invoking a 
great diluvial catastrophe.” 
Sir Henry Howorth’s volumes will be useful as giving references 
to old and forgotten writers on diluvial theories, and we have our- 
selves noticed several that were new to us. The more modern 
portions, and those relating to glaciation, are most imperfect. The 
Scandinavian writers who have done so much to increase our know- 
ledge, are, for instance, almost ignored, or only quoted at second- 
hand from the “The Great Ice Age”; even the English Vand 
American literature of recent years has not been properly examined. 
After going through the two volumes carefully, and noting how time 
after time the author brings forward untrustworthy witnesses in favour 
of his own case, and omits to call the strongest on the other side, we 
cannot recommend the “Glacial Nightmare” to the student as 
giving either an accurate or impartial summary of the present state 
of our knowledge. We observe that the volumes are marred also 
by an enormous number of errors and misprints. Only ninety of 
these are corrected in the author’s own “table of errata,’ but ten of the 
corrections are themselves wrong! Where quotations have had their 
punctuation or wording altered, inverted commas should not be used ; 
and we still less like to see them inclosing inaccurate translations 
