January 20, 192 1] 



NATURE 



675 



Federal Science during the World-war: Geology in Austria- Hungary in 1914-19. 



Bv Prof. Grenville A. J. Cole, F.R.S. 



IN Nature, vol. xciv., p. 94, on the last day of the 

 eventful year 1914, a sketch was given of the 

 publications of the Geologische Keichsanstalt of 

 Vienna from 191 1 to 1913. Ihe reduction in the scope 

 of the institute, necessitated by political rearrange- 

 ments, was recently referred to with some regret, and, 

 now that international communications are restored, 

 we are enabled to welcome the volumes issued during 

 the years of war. The maintenance of the ]ahi- 

 btuh in its well-known handsome form is a remark- 

 able testimony to the energy of Dr. Tietze and his 

 staff. While machine-guns rattled above the glaciers 

 of the Ortler and slaughter surged from Caporetto 

 to the sea, the Reichsanstalt not only discussed 

 questions of philosophic interest, but even printed 

 the results in anticipation of the return of happier 

 times. Colour-printed maps and sections and photo- 

 gravures of fossils accompany these volumes, 

 which from January, I9"i4, to December, 1918, 

 occupy a width of 15 cm. on our shelves. The Ver- 

 handlungen give us an extra thickness of 7 cm. This 

 method of statement may appear crude in a matter 

 of scientific output ; but could we have claimed as 

 much from H.M. Stationery Office in London if a 

 lithe and indefatigable enemy had been battering our 

 defences no farther away than the line Middlesbrough 

 — Baugh Fell — Morecanibe Bay? 



Many of the recent papers in the Jahrbuch 

 naturally treat of local details, and describe observa- 

 tions made during long mapping in the field ; but 

 few of them are devoid of wider applications. The 

 fascinating mass of the Wetterstein on the northern 

 ■wall of Tirol occupied O. .Ampferer and O. Schlagint- 

 weit in the Verhandlungen in 1912. K. C. von 

 Loesch (Jahrb., 1014, p. i) has now made a close 

 study of its " Schollenbau " and that of the parallel 

 Mieminger range immediately to the south, which 

 is well known to travellers down the Inntal between 

 Imst and Innsbruck. Von Loesch is particularly 

 concerned with the lateral movements that followed, 

 after an interval of repose, the main ovcrfolding from 

 the south. His summing up fails to give a com- 

 prphensive view of the westerly movements of the 

 isolated blocks — a feature first indicated by Ampferer. 

 Onf would like to know whether these may be fairly 

 compared with the settling down and spreading of the 

 frnnf nf a wavc that has subsided on a shore. The 

 ■1 of how far the tension evidenced by 

 ^ive " outbreaks of rocks in Alpine mines and 

 tunnels is a heritage from the Miocene movements 

 is considered a few pages later by K. A. Weithofer, 

 of Munich (" IJebcr Gebirgsspanniingen und Gcbirgs- 

 schl.-ige," Jahrb., 1914, p. 99). His paper discusses 

 such occurrences in general, and concludes that no 

 single explanation applies equally to all. 



E. Fugger ('914. P- 369) describes the delight- 

 ful country of the Tennengebirgc south of S.ilzburg, 

 where the Triassic rocks of the Eastern Alps first 

 reveal ili<-ir bf.'uitv and fascination to the traveller on 

 the road to Radstadt. He quotes from F. Wiihner 

 an cxplan.-ition of the double gorge of the Sakach 

 above Golling, whrre a climb is made to the Lueg 

 Pass along a drv ravine partly choked with glacial 

 detritus. After the Icp age the river failed to return 

 to its old groove, from which It was banked out by 

 debris, and it carved the deep and impassable gorge 

 of the Offen close alongside. A rock-ridge only 

 200 m. wide sep.nrates the two ravines. 



As art example of research into the strattgraphiml 



NO. 2673, VOL. 106] 



problems of the liastern .\lps we may cite W. 

 Hammer's far-seeing paper on the Biindnerschiefer 

 of the Upper Inntal, with its numerous sections, and 

 two coloured maps on the large scale of i : 25,000 

 (1914, pp. 441-566). The Biindnerschiefer, corre- 

 sponding with the schistes lustres of the Western 

 .\lps, occupy small areas south of Landeck on the 

 margin of the gneiss, and present the usual dilhcul- 

 ties of correlation. Hammer records interesting 

 breccias with limestone fragments containing radio- 

 laria ; but fossil evidence is practically wanting. He 

 inclines to the view that the beds are metamorphosed 

 elements of Upper Cretaceous rather than older 

 Mesozoic strata. Exotic Triassic masses appear 

 among them in a disconcerting way (section on p. 453, 

 etc.), and pebbles of Triassic rocks occur in con- 

 glomerates of the Bundner series. 



Hammer continues (1918, p. 205) his studies 



in the Landeck district by a description of the zone 



of phyllites, associated with mica-schists, that runs 



along the north side of the Silvretta and Oetztal gneiss 



\ from St. Anton on the Arlberg to the village of Roppen 



in the Inntal. The series dips towards and under 



the gneiss, just as the Biindnerschiefer do from an 



opposite direction. The phyllites are overlain uncon- 



formably by the Verrucano, which was formed be- 



I tweon the .Armorican movements and the Triassic 



1 period. Their relations with the gneisses seem due 



: to the early earth-movements, but here and there 



intrusive gneisses have invaded them. An interesting 



i type (p. 216), the " Feldspathknotengneis," occurs 



in the phvllite series, and is marked by the 



development of albite in an originally sedimentary 



rock. The growth of the felspar has no connection 



with contact-action. 



F. .\ngel and F. Heritsch, both of Graz, found an 

 almost ideal working-ground on the Stubalp, part of 

 the noble wall of crystalline rocks that hems in the 

 basin of Graz on the west. The position of Austria 

 in the world-war was so enforced and so anomalous 

 j that_ we may sympathise with these geological en- 

 thusiasts when they write of their mountain fastness : 

 " Die Liebe zur Heimat, die Freude an den Bergen 

 hat uns immer wiedcr dorthin gefiJhrt, wo wir den 

 Jammer des Krieges vergessen konnten. Die 

 Forscherlust war die Begleiierin unserer Wander- 

 ungen." F. Angel contributes detailed petrographic 

 studies of the rocks encountered, which include both 

 a sedimentary and a gneissic scries; but the chief 

 point of general interest lies in Heritsch's conclusion 

 (p. 203) that the whole mass and its present structure 

 are of pre-Cambrian age. The Stubalp thus seems 

 to be an antique block worked up, perhaps, but by no 

 means obliterated in the later tectonics of the .Alps. 



The attention given in these recent volumes to 

 Bohemia, mainly through the work of Czech geo- 

 logists, leaves a serious heritage to the revived States 

 that look to Prague as their intellectual centre. The 

 old question of the Silurian "colonies," and the 

 work of J. E. Marr in giving them a tectonic signi- 

 ficance, come up again in E. Nowak's researches on 

 the southern edge of the basin (1914, p. 215) and in 

 F. Wiihner's paper (1916, p. 50) on the structure of 

 centr.il Bohemia, which recognises in the basin the 

 remains of a formerly extensive and crumpled 

 mountain range. This seems to have existed in Upper 

 Devonian times, and one is tempted to ask if, with 

 the north-east strike impressed upon its constituents, 

 it cannot be regarded as part of the Caledonian con- 



