NATURE 



481 



THURSDAY, APRIL 20, 1876 



CAMPBELL'S ''CIRCULAR NOTES" 



My Circular Notes. Extracts from Journals, Letters sent 

 home. Geological and other Notes, written while Tra- 

 velling Westwards round the World, from July 6, 1874, 

 to July 6, 1875. By J. F. Campbell, Author of " Frost 

 and Fire." 2 vols. (London : Macmillan and Co., 

 1876.) 



ALL who are acquainted with the undoubted merits of 

 Mr. Campbell's earlier work — merits to which not 

 even the most serious and glaring defects in style, matter, 

 and arrangement can render us insensible — will hail with 

 pleasure the appearance of this latest production of his 

 ever lively pen and amusing pencil. We cannot but think 

 that in this, his second venture, the author has greatly 

 profited by some of the severe but not unfriendly criti- 

 cisms which were elicited by the publication of his first 

 work. Mr. Campbell has, in " My Circular Notes," 

 avoided the grave mistake of mingling together in wild 

 confusion humorously-written notes of travel and sober 

 arguments on difficult scientific questions ; and he has 

 exercised, as we think, a very wise discretion in relegating 

 to an appendix the discussion of that important geological 

 problem, the hope of solving which seems to have been 

 his main incitement to undertaking this journey round 

 the world. In perusing this scientific portion of his book, 

 with which of course the readers of Nature are princi- 

 pally cencerned, we are happy to find far fewer examples 

 of that looseness and inaccuracy of language and to miss 

 that dogmatic tone and redundancy of illustration which 

 were the conspicuous blemishes of the author's earlier 

 work. And all these improvements have we think been 

 effected, without any sacrifice of his really graphic and 

 vigorous style of writing upon scientific questions. 



Before proceeding to notice the purely scientific portion 

 of '•' My Circular Notes," we must remark that, even those 

 who care nothing about the geological problems discussed 

 in it, will find very much to interest them in this most lively 

 and amusing record of travels. Those who would realise 

 the curious scenes which may be witnessed in the Western 

 States of North America, where the most volatile elements 

 of old nationalities are uniting to form a new community — 

 those who take interest in that wonderful social experi- 

 ment which is now being tried in Japan, no less a one 

 than the transplanting, bodily, of the full-grown civilisa- 

 tion of the West among the most conservative races of the 

 East — and those who desire to learn something of the 

 relics of the ancient nations, languages, folk-lore, and 

 creeds of Ceylon — cannot do better than accept the 

 guidance of Mr. Campbell. In him they will find a most 

 vi\'acious and ever-amusing companion. Yet, on the 

 other hand, his digressions upon such subjects as emigra- 

 tion and the struggle of races, and his treatment of ques- 

 tions like the relationships of languages and the origin of 

 myths, will sufficiently prove that he has thought earnestly 

 upon many social and philological problems, and has 

 aimed at something higher than merely writing a diverting 

 book of travel. 



In adopting the method of loosely stringing together 

 extracts from his journal with private letters, and making 

 Vou XIII. — No. 338 



no attempt to weld them into a consecutive narrative, our 

 author certainly trespasses somewhat upon the indulgence 

 of his readers. This disadvantage is perhaps in some 

 degree compensated for, however, by the freshness and 

 \'igour of his descriptions and reflections, appearing as 

 they do, just as at first dashed off in the presence of the 

 strange scenes which inspired them. 



The problem on which the author of this work has 

 sought to throw light in making this journey round the 

 world is one of considerable interest to geologists at the 

 present time. In 1840 Agassiz brought forward evidence 

 which soon convinced even the most sceptical that, not 

 only did the glaciers of the Alps at one time extend far 

 beyond their present limits, but that many districts — such 

 as parts of our own islands, for example — which are now 

 entirely devoid of glaciers, must once have been sub- 

 jected to the powerful erosive action of moving ice. The 

 idea was at once taken up by Buckland, Lyell, and other 

 observers in this country, who showed that the new 

 " Glacial theory " afforded a complete solution of what 

 had hitherto constituted some of the most difficult and 

 perplexmg problems of geology. 



By some later authors, however, the " Glacial theory," 

 which had soon met with all but universal acceptance, 

 was pushed far beyond those limits which geological ob- 

 ser\-ation warranted. It was asserted that, not only did 

 the existing rock-surfaces of the more northern regions of 

 the earth owe some of their later touches to the erosive 

 action of glaciers, but that many even of the grandest 

 valleys and the deepest lakes were entirely scooped out 

 by their agency. Sone even went farther than this, and 

 declared that the whole region around either of the poles 

 must at one period have been enveloped by continuous 

 sheets of solid ice (" ice-caps ") which extended far into 

 temperate and even tropical latitudes. They maintained, 

 in opposition to the arguments of Lyell, that no changes 

 in the distribution of land and water on the earth's sur- 

 face could possibly account for the former extension of 

 glaciers, and they invoked the aid of some astronomical 

 cause to account for the alleged phenomena. A few 

 waxed even bolder than this, and insisted that they had 

 found evidence, which warranted them in believing in 

 the regular recurrence, during past geological time, of 

 alternating mild and glacial periods ; and several rival 

 astronomical theories were even suggested to account for 

 these supposed rhythmical changes in climate. 



Among the foremost of the champions of these extreme 

 views appeared the author of the present volumes. In 

 1873, he read before the Geologicad Society a paper in 

 which he attributed the production of the whole valley 

 system of Ireland to the erosive action of a polar ice-sheet. 

 The remarks elicited from several geologists during the 

 discussion of this paper appear to have induced Mr. 

 Campbell, who, during his travels in Scotland, Norway, 

 Iceland, North America, &c,, had acquired great skill in 

 recognising the pecuhar marks produced by glacial action, 

 to extend the limits of his observations by a journey right 

 round the continent of Europe. \\Tiat he then saw led 

 him so far to distrust his former conclusions concerning 

 the existence of a universal glacial period and a polar 

 ice-sheet, that he determined to put the question to the 

 severest test possible, by a complete tour of the globe. 



J^Ir. Campbell's mode of arguing this question is as 



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