488 



NATURE 



{April 5, 1877 



basin was not excavated during the greatest extension of 

 the ice-sheet, which, as shown by the striae on the higher 

 ground, passed directly across the valley. But in the 

 bottom of the valley the striae point tip the lake, and this 

 fact makes it probable that the excavation of the basin 

 was the work of local ice, in other words, that it dates 

 from a time when the valley-glaciers had ceased to 

 coalesce. The islands near the upper end of the lake are 

 wrought out of hard Corniferous sandstone and Water- 

 lime exposed on the crown of the Cincinnati anticline. 

 This hard barrier, Prof. Newberry beHeves, opposed an 

 obstinate resistance to the passage of the glacier, and was 

 consequently left in comparative relief. 



The Ohio geologists without exception appear to be 

 sub-aerialists, and indeed, the scenery of the State —such 

 as it is — could hardly admit of any other explanation. It 

 would not be easy to connect valleys of some hundreds of 

 feet in depth with faults of less than a yard. 



Of the palaeontology of the Reports, we need only say 

 that it is a remarkable proof of the enthusiasm, energy, 

 and success of the late Prof. Meek and the naturaUsts who 

 assisted him, several of them without any compensation. 

 The publication of the Survey as a whole marks an epoch 

 in culture as well as in material progress, in which all the 

 well-wishers of the State must rejoice. 



OUR BOOK SHELF 



History of Nepal. Translated from the Parbatiya, by 

 Munshi Shero Shunker Singh and Pandit Shrl Guna- 

 nand. With an Introductory Sketch of the Country 

 and People of Nepal, by the Editor, Daniel Wright, 

 M.A., M.D. (London, Cambridge Warehouse ; Cam- 

 bridge, Deighton, Bell, and Co., 1877.) 



The Cambridge University Press have done well in pub- 

 lishing this work. Such translations are valuable not 

 only to the historian but also to the ethnologist ; perhaps 

 more so to the latter than the former, as the very myths 

 with which a people are apt to adorn their own his- 

 tory may become, in the hands of a cunning ethnologist, 

 a clue to their racial connections. Dr. Wright's Intro- 

 duction is based on personal inquiry and observation, is 

 written intelligently and candidly, and adds much to the 

 value of the volume. The coloured lithographic plates 

 are interesting. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 



\The Editor does not hold hwiself 7-esponsible for opinions expressed 

 by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake'^ to returtt, 

 or to correspond viith the writers of, rejected manusciipts. 

 No notice is taken of anonymous communuations.'\ 



The First Swallow at Menton 



The first swallow arrived here alone in the rain on Monday, 

 March 19. It entered the best room of the cure by one of the 

 windows which chanced to want a pane, and the good old man 

 immediately removed a pane from the other window, by which 

 the swallows have been in the habit of going in and out. I did 

 not hear of the arrival of this summer resident until the 23rd, 

 when I immediately paid it a visit. It is still solitary but not 

 uncomfortable ; it flits about the room from place to place, and 

 from nest to nest, twittering very contentedly ; and when a 

 bright hour comes it flies out, where, sporting in the sun it soon 

 makes a hearty meal. But it has arrived decidedly too soon, for 

 it has found as yet mostly wet and rather cold days with snow- 

 covered mountains for its immediate surrounding. Such, how- 

 ever, is the climate of this place, difficult to conceive by un- 

 travelled Englishmen, that I at this moment bask outside in the 

 sun, soothed by the singing of birds, surrounded by flowers and 

 butterflies, and the green trees with their golden fruits. I am in 



the midst of summer, and yet I have but to turn my head, and 

 there, close at hand, are the mountains white with snow. 



The coldest weather we have had this winter began with this 

 month. The only time I have seen ice was on the morning of 

 March i. (On the preceding night, I see by a letter to Nature, 

 vol. XV. p. 399, that the thermometer at the Stonyhurst Observa- 

 tory went down to 9°"i F., the lowest temperature there recorded 

 during the last sixteen ye3.rs.) That morning, cheated by the 

 serene stillness and the bright sunshine, I, before getting out of 

 bed, resolved to make a journey to the sea-side — a distance of 

 about three miles. A lunch was immediately packed up and the 

 donkey of the cure borrowed for the occasion. As soon as I 

 descended into the valley — Cabrolles, consisting of some dozen 

 houses, all the dwellings of peasants, and hung on the mountain 

 side like so many birds' cages or birds' nests on the back wall of 

 a court, open only to the south, is 300 feet above the level of the 

 sea, and enjoys a climate superior to that of the much-vaunted 

 Menton. I am, however, the first eiranger who has ventured 

 to brave the isolation, the inconvenience, and want of ac- 

 commodation. — Well, as I have said, on descending into the 

 valley, a change of temperature suggested that it would be 

 preferable to have my Italian cloak around me, instead of carry- 

 ing it before me on the donkey. Proceeding a little farther, I 

 saw with astonishment large quantities of ice in the torrent, and 

 in turns of the road looking northward, icicles, thick as my arm 

 — which, however, is one of the thinnest — hanging from the 

 rocks. Still I went forward quite irrationally, carried along 

 solely by the force of the impetus with which I started, for, as I 

 approached Menton, I had to make way in the face of a biting 

 cold wind. But I would certainly have shivered over my cold 

 lunch among the rocks or ruins at Cap Martin, had not my 

 progress received a check at Menton, in the for the moment 

 irritating discovery that the key of the provision-bag had been, 

 I may now say providentially, lost. I accepted the hospitality 

 of a kind English clergyman, who gave me a nice warm lunch, 

 after which I slowly wound my way back to my mountain 

 retreat, where I dwell almost as completely removed from the 

 winter visitants of these shores as is the now lonely swallow from 

 its companions, the summer visitants, which have not unwisely 

 made a halt somewhere by the way. 



After this long digression I must return for a moment to tiic 

 swallows of Cabrolles. They live in the rooms with the people, 

 attaching their nests generally to the beam which supports the 

 ceiling. On their arrival, whether it be by night or by day, they 

 enter at once and take possession of their old habitations. 

 Madame Valetta, an old woman of seventy-three, has two or 

 three times given me a graphic account of how, when she 

 was a young woman and had her husband by her side, they 

 were both frightened almost to death one night by something 

 which from time to time gave a flap-flap against the glass of the 

 window. Madame, however, summoned courage to urge her 

 husband to get up and open the window, which, though "all of 

 a shake," he did, when whish ! very like a spirit, a weary 

 swallow glided past him and was the same instant peacefully 

 reposing in its nest. Douglas A. Spalding 



Cabrolles, pres de Menton, France, 

 March 24 



Coal Fields of Nova Scotia 



In his address to the Iron and Steel Institute (Nature, vol. 

 XV., p. 462), Dr. Siemens stated that the area of the Coal Fields 

 of Nova Scotia was 18,000 square miles, and the production in ^^1 

 1874 1,052,000 tons. If Dr. Siemens will refer to Dr. Dawson's ' \ 

 "Acadian Geology," the Reports of the "Canadian Govern- 

 ment Geologists," and Brown's " Coal Fields and Coal Trade of 'J 

 Cape Breton," he will find that he has greatly overstated the g 

 area of the Nova Scotia Coal Fields. From these sources, ;]■; 

 which I believe are perfectly reliable, I make out that the whole \l 

 area of the Nova Scotia Coal Fields does not amount to 1,000 -^ 

 square miles, distributed over the following counties : — ■' 



Cumberland 



Picton 



Cape Breton 



Victoria 



Inverness 



Riclmiond 



