422 



NATURE 



{Sept. 14, 1876 



he was showing the present writer some of the tablets he 

 had found, when a lady and gentleman came up and 

 asked various questions, to which he replied with his 

 usual courtesy. They thanked him and were turning 

 away when, hearing his name pronounced, the lady 

 asked : " Are you Mr. Smith ? " On his replying " That 

 is my name, madam," she exclaimed, " What, not the 

 great Mr. Smith ! " and then, like the gentleman with her, 

 insisted upon having "the honour" of shaking hands 

 with the distinguished Assyriologue, while the latter crim- 

 soned to the roots of his hair. His loss is an irreparable 

 one to Assyriology, even beyond his powers as a deci- 

 pherer, as his memory enabled him to remember the 

 place and nature of each of the myriad clay fragments 

 now in the Museum, while his keenness of vision made his 

 copies of the minute characters of the tablets exception- 

 ally trustworthy. It is distressing to think that he leaves 

 behind him a wife and large family of small children, 

 the youngest of whom was born but a short time before 

 his last departure from England. A. H. Sayce 



THE NORWEGIAN TOURISTS' ASSOCIATION 

 Year-book of the Norwegian Tourists Association for 



1875 {Den Norske Turistforenings Arbog fof 1875.) 



(Kristiania : Cammermeyer). 



THIS year-book, which is the eighth of a series issued 

 by the Association, contains some information likely 

 to be useful to those who intend to visit the /jelds of 

 Norway, and two papers at least of scientific interest by 

 Mr. A. Helland. The indefatigable mountain-climbers, 

 Mr. E. Mohn and Mr. Wm. Cecil Slingsby, have each 

 contributed a paper on their adventures during short ex- 

 cursions made on the Jotunheim-f jeld ("Adventures on 

 the Fjelds," and "An English Lady in Jotunheimer "). 

 These accounts, written in a lively, pleasant style (the 

 last in English), will be read with interest by tourists who 

 are in search of new fields of exploration. In the paper 

 of O. A. C. " Bagatelles from a Journey in the Nord- 

 land," the reader will find some fine description of 

 nature and life in the northern parts of the Scandinavian 

 peninsula. 



The paper by Mr. A. Helland, " On ' Cirques ' and 

 Sack-valleys,' ^ and on their importance in the theories 

 of the Formation of Valleys," will certainly be perused 

 with profit by the geologist.^ After a description of 

 cirques, and sack- valleys, and of the forms intermediate 

 between the two, Mr. Helland remarks that the openings 

 of the cirques are generally directed towards the north. 

 This law, he says, is well illustrated by a large scale map 

 of the Jotunfjelds, constructed by Capt. Hertzberg ; and 

 from a table, in which the author gives the directions of 

 thirty-seven cirques of different magnitudes (from 0*3 to 

 4 kilometres long), it is seen that twenty-five cirques are 

 directed towards points lying between north-west and 

 north-east, eleven between north-west and south-west or 

 north-east and south-east, and one points towards the 

 south-east. Certainly in other localities there are cirques 



1 '' Om botner og saekkedale, samt deres betydning for theorier om 

 dalenes dannelse." A " botn," a semi- circular indentation in the mass of 

 the field, is what is called in the Alps a " cirque." A " SEekkedal," i.e., a 

 valley, the head of which presents a semi-circular enlargement, or a 

 "cirque," a valley which ends in a cul-de-sac, might be called a "sack- 

 valley," a literal translation of the word " saekkedal." 



^ This paper is reprinted from the valuable periodical, Geologiska Foren- 

 in^fus i Stockholm Forhandlins;ar. 



pointing even due south, but these are only exceptions to 

 the general rule. Besides, when a valley has a west-east 

 direction, or when the slope of a f jeld follows this direc- 

 tion, it is on the slope which faces to the north that semi- 

 circular indentations or little cirques are found. 



A second law which may be established for the cirques 

 of the parts of Norway explored by the author, is, that 

 the largest are generally found in the neighbourhood of 

 the highest peaks of the country. 



As to the origin of the cirques, Mr. Helland refers 

 to a note of Mr. Lorange, which he gives in extenso^ 

 and in which the author, though not a geologist by pro- 

 fession, makes some very valuable observations on the 

 cirques, on their close relations with glaciers, existing 

 and extinct, and with old moraines. His notes on 

 the transport of blocks from the interior of the cirques, 

 and on the directions of their transit, show how im- 

 portant was the part played by ice in the excava- 

 tion or in the clearing of cirques. The conclusions 

 arrived at . by Mr. Lorange, and supported by Mr. 

 Helland are, that cirques, as well as sack-valleys, were 

 necessarily excavated with the aid of glacier-ice. But 

 the ice did not act as a direct excavating agent ; it only 

 cleared away the debris which had accumulated in the 

 cirques, the rock being disintegrated by the incessant 

 intermittence of the freezing and thawing of water in the 

 fissures. Doing little to excavate the valley, the glacier 

 acts as a powerful means of transport of the disinte- 

 grated parts of the rock, where such a means is want- 

 ing, as on the tops of mountains, there the debris 

 accumulates and protects the underlying rock from 

 further disintegration. The tarns, so numerous at the 

 bottoms of cirques and of sack-valleys, were formed, the 

 author supposes, by the same process, the rocks being 

 disintegrated when the water freezes under the glacier 

 during winter. This theory of the transport power of 

 glaciers is supported by some authorities in England, but 

 we think that it meets with two great difficulties. It is in 

 contradiction with the well-known fact, that in the valleys 

 of the Alps the ice has acted as a sheet, protecting the 

 rock from disintegration ; that the disintegration proceeds 

 far more rapidly above the glacier than beneath it. And 

 secondly, the theory does not explain why the disintegra- 

 tion should go on so rapidly in the head of the valley and 

 so slowly in its lower parts (the dififerences of height and 

 climate being trifling), as to produce a very great semi- 

 circular enlargement at the head of the valley. We believe, 

 therefore, that so long as it is not admitted that a glacier, 

 charged on its lower surface with a mass of debris, is really 

 a mighty excavating agent, we cannot come to a satisfactory 

 explanation of the cirques. The observation of Mr. Helland 

 that the openings of the cirques are generally directed to 

 the north, i.e. to the part of horizon fi'Otn which came 

 the ice in many instances, suggests a question which we 

 will simply refer to without entering into details. Were not 

 some cirques, or a part of the enlargements of some cirques, 

 excavated by the ice during its ascending motion from the 

 valley on the fjeld? Those who accept the molecular 

 motion of glacier-ice, i.e. its perfect plasticity or vis- 

 cosity, with all the consequences of this theory, certainly 

 will not find the question extravagant ; they will remem- 

 ber that the motion of ice up the valleys, and even a 

 motion on slopes from 20° to 63° is an established fact. 



