June 28, 1888] 



NATURE 



195 



finds what he believes to be evidence of the pas- 

 sage of a conglomerate into augen-gneiss. Without 

 in any way calling in question the accuracy of his 

 observations, a geologist who has had much expe- 

 rience among the crystalline schists in districts where 

 great thrust-planes and other proofs of powerful dis- 

 placements prevail, will recall examples of breccias that 

 might at first be taken to be sedimentary masses, but 

 which have eventually proved to be portions of rocks 

 crushed during the disturbances that produced the 

 schistose structure. Coarse pegmatites, for example, 

 may be traced through various stages of comminution, 

 until they pass at length, along the plane of movement, 

 into finely fissile rocks, that in some cases might be mis- 

 taken for shales, in others for eruptive rocks with the 

 most exquisitely developed flow-structure. The " eyes " 

 in some augen-gneisses are almost certainly fragments 

 resulting from the crushing of largely crystalline rocks, 

 such as coarse pegmatites. 



Dr. Reusch shows that in Scandinavia, as in the north- 

 west and north of the British Isles, the axes of the great 

 terrestrial plications run, on the whole, from north-east 

 to south-west, and that as they have involved Upper 

 Silurian strata in their folds, the movements must be of 

 later date than some part, if not the whole, of the Upper 

 Silurian period. His essay is most welcome as a valu- 

 able contribution to one of the most perplexing problems 

 in geology. It once more shows him to be a careful and 

 intrepid field-geologist, and, at the same time, a skilful 

 worker with the microscope. This combination of quali- 

 fications fits him in a special manner for the researches to 

 which he has devoted himself with so much ardour and 

 success. His volume is copiously illustrated with figures 

 in the text, and a selection of coloured geological maps. 

 English geologists will also welcome in it a copious 

 English summary of the contents. We may confidently 

 predict that, before long, some of his drawings will be 

 reproduced in the text-books as standard representations 

 of the facts of regional metamorphism. A. G. 



TRAVELS IN ARABIA DESERT A. 



Travels in Arabia Deserta, By C. M. Doughty. 2 Vols. 

 (Cambridge: University Press, 1888.) 



MR. DOUGHTY'S book takes us back to the age of 

 the old travellers. His wanderings were in countries 

 where not only no European had preceded him, but 

 where he had to travel with his life continually in his 

 hand. He travelled alone, and without any of the equip- 

 ment which the modern explorer considers a necessity of 

 existence, living with the Beduin of the desert, and 

 sharing with them their wretched subsistence. Even 

 the style in which he writes is a style in which it is safe 

 to say no Englishman has written for the last two 

 hundred years, and while it attracts us by its quaintness 

 it makes us not unfrequently wonder what is exactly the 

 author's meaning. Indeed, were it not for the very 

 excellent index, it would often be almost impossible to 

 find one's way through the labyrinth of Mr. Doughty's 

 sentences or to ascertain the exact chronology of his 

 route. 



Mr. Doughty seems to have been born under an evil 



star. While he possesses most of the requisites of a 

 successful traveller — a love of adventure, an insatiable 

 curiosity, indomitable patience, and extraordinary powers 

 of endurance— he lacks, on the other hand, just those 

 qualities which would have smoothed his journey and 

 made his life more comfortable. He is a man, by his own 

 confession, of blunt and plain speech, improvident and 

 forgetful, with an old world belief in the falsity of 

 Mohammedanism and the Koran, and the iniquity of 

 countenancing them even by a politic word. His 

 explorations took place at the time of the war between 

 Turkey and Russia, when the fanaticism of the Moham- 

 medans of Arabia was excited to the utmost, and he had 

 to leave Damascus at the outset of his journey without 

 any letters or help from the British Consul. The latter, 

 indeed, declared that "he had as much regard of" him, 

 would he " take such dangerous ways, as of his old hat." 

 It is no wonder that Mr. Doughty complains of conduct 

 which caused him " many times come nigh to be foully 

 murdered." 



His explorations were conducted in Central Arabia, 

 a country which is less known than Central Africa. 

 He accompanied the Mecca pilgrims as far as " the 

 kella " or fort of Medain, where he lived with the Turkish 

 garrison, visiting from time to time the ruins of Medain 

 Salihh, and taking squeezes of the Nabathean inscrip- 

 tions there. After some months he joined the nomad 

 Beduin, and wandered with them in various directions, 

 visiting the lava crags on the west and Teyma on the 

 north-east. Eventually he made his way to Hayil in the 

 Nejd — a centre of Wahabi fanaticism — where a sort of 

 settled government was established under Ibn Rashid. 

 From Nejd he was forwarded, along with some Beduin, 

 to Kheybar, not far to the north of Medineh, where he 

 found himself once more within what was nominally 

 Turkish territory, and was arrested as a spy. Released 

 after a while, he was sent back again, for reasons which 

 are never explained, to Hayil, and here his troubles began. 

 The people of the place would not receive the Christian 

 stranger a second time ; his Beduin escort were afraid 

 of bringing him back to Kheybar, and after a series 

 of misadventures he was finally deserted near Aneyza, a 

 town considerably to the south of Hayil. The governor 

 and leading merchants of Aneyza fortunately befriended 

 him, and he at last found his way to Taif and Jedda, 

 though not without being first stripped of the little that 

 still belonged to him, and narrowly escaping with his life. 



Mr. Doughty was a careful observer, and he has not 

 only made important additions to our geographical know- 

 ledge of Arabia, but also to our geological knowledge of 

 it. The inscriptions he obtained at Medain Salihh and 

 elsewhere have been published by the French Govern- 

 ment, and important inferences have been drawn from 

 them. They prove not only that a powerful and civilized 

 State existed in this part of Arabia far on into the 

 Christian era — a fact which was already known — but that 

 this State was Nabathean in its language and character. 

 M. Berger has come to the conclusion that before the 

 rise of Mohammedanism the Arabic of the Koran was 

 the language of Mecca only and the surrounding district, 

 the Nabathean with its Aramaic affinities prevailing in 

 the northern part of Arabia, and the Himyaritic in the 

 south. It seems clear, at all events, that the Nabathean 



