NATURE 



60 1 



THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH. 

 Das Antlitz der Erde. Von Eduard Suess. Mit Ab- 

 bildungen und Kartenskizzen. Erste Abtheilung, 1883 : 

 Zweite Abtheilung (Schluss des I. Bandes), 1885. 

 (Prag: F. Tempsky. Leipzig: G. Freytag.) Zweiter 

 Band. Mit 42 Text-Abbildungen, i Tafel, und 2 

 Karten in Farbendruck. (Prag: Wien. Leipzig: F. 

 Tempsky, 1888.) 



THE varied attainments of geographers have enabled 

 them to express emphatic views on the scope of 

 their subject. Each in turn has augmented knowledge of 

 the earth's surface till it has become difficult to distin- 

 guish the contributions of mathematician and astronomer, 

 physicist and physical observer, geologist and naturalist. 

 Many geologists have been eminent as geographers, and 

 Lyell and Humboldt gave the subject an enduring scien- 

 tific importance by teaching the eft'ects of geological 

 causation in shaping the earth's surface. Every geologist 

 is aware how the light of geological structure illuminates 

 the problems of mountain form, position, and relation to 

 surrounding land ; but never till now has an author 

 attempted to narrate the geographical story and history 

 of the earth's surface from a geological point of view. 

 Prof. Suess has brought to the subject the qualifications 

 of a great teacher, who realizes that science has a duty to 

 make itself available to the unlearned, no less than to aid 

 the researches which are yet to be made ; and he has 

 conceived of the earth's surface in a new, forcible way, 

 which stimulates alike imagination and thought, and lays 

 before the reader a wide knowledge of fact. This work, 

 which we know has occupied the author for the past 

 twelve years or more, can scarcely be judged of as a whole, 

 because the third volume, whose subject gives a title to 

 the treatise, is unpublished ; but we may say that a more 

 luminous and profound endeavour to place the elements 

 of scientific geography before the general reader has not 

 been made. We may perhaps think the subjects discussed 

 need the aid of more figures to enable the reader to think 

 as the author thinks, and attain a similar command of 

 his facts. The aim of the work is to lead the reader 

 through a consideration of the movements in the outer 

 layers of the earth's crust which are manifested at the 

 present day, and in the first half of the first volume the 

 more striking phenomena are narrated, which are asso- 

 ciated with volcanic disturbance and earth movements. 

 The second part of the volume examines the structure 

 and construction of mountain chains. The author 

 naturally takes the Alpine system first, as nearest to the 

 Austrian people, and then treats of the depressions, like 

 the Adriatic and Mediterranean, associated with the pro- 

 longations of the Alpine system. Successive chapters 

 tell the story of the mountain structure of Southern Africa 

 and the Sahara, of Central Asia and the Malay Islands, 

 and of the mountain systems of America and the West 

 Indies. Thus, by raising the mountain chains, the author 

 leads up, in the final chapter of the first volume, to a dis- 

 cussion of the nature and origin of continents, no less 

 than of their relations to the seas from which they 

 emerge. 



Vol. XXXIX.— No. 1017. 



The introduction is an introductory lecture, not written 

 like a syllabus, for that is given in the table of contents, 

 but designed to introduce the reader to conceptions of a 

 large kind on which the scientific aspects of geography 

 are based. The distribution and forms of land masses 

 and depths of the oceans are shown to be effects of move- 

 ments of the earth-rind which have varied through suc- 

 cessive geological ages and so changed the distribution 

 of life. 



The work begins with an exposition of the Flood and 

 ancient Babylonian cosmogonies, and the author states 

 that the Deluge was connected with the lower Euphrates 

 and flooding of the low land of Mesopotamia, owing 

 probably to an earthquake combined with a cyclone from 

 the south. The interest of the unlearned reader is thus 

 insured. An excellent account is given of earthquake 

 phenomena, followed by a chapter on " Dislocations," 

 which are defined as resulting from decrease in the 

 volume of the earth, and as comprising horizontal and 

 vertical movements. The crumpling, contortion, and 

 folding of the rocks of mountain masses is classified as 

 consequent on tangential thrust, sinking, and the com- 

 bined effects of these actions. Volcanic phenomena 

 occupy the next chapter, and are regarded as dependent 

 on the formation of radial fissures. These general 

 studies completed, we turn in the second part of the first 

 volume to the mountains of the earth. The Russian 

 table-land is described as consisting of granite in Fin- 

 land, on which rest Silurian and Devonian, and suc- 

 cessively newer rocks stretching under the Carpathians ;. 

 but it is uncertain whether the newer rocks of this plain 

 extend under the Bug. The Sudetic Alps are described 

 as closely linked in origin with the Russian table-land 

 and the Carpathians. The Franconian-Suabian basin fol- 

 lows, and leads to a discussion of the system of the Alps,, 

 which is regarded as beginning with the Carpathians, as 

 curving south with the Jura, being prolonged south-east 

 with the Apennines, and then continued west through 

 North Africa to the pillars of Hercules. The plain of 

 Hungary is compared to the eastern half of the Mediter- 

 ranean. The Adriatic basin is closely connected with 

 the Plain of Lombardy, both being defined by the Apen- 

 nines, which, though at one time independent of the Alps, 

 have now become connected with them. These mountains 

 rise in an unbroken, steep curve facing those depressions,, 

 and looking like an outer border of the Alps thrust up 

 above the level of the deep-lying basins. The history of 

 the Mediterranean Sea is illustrated by the newer Tertiary 

 deposits and the life which they contain. At first the sea 

 reached the central plateau of France, the valley of the 

 Rhone, Styria, Switzerland, Hungary, and Transylvania, 

 stretching east to the source of the Euphrates and 

 Northern Persia. The second phase of the Mediter- 

 ranean was excluded from Switzerland and the valley of 

 the Danube, and extended over the Russian plateau to 

 Kherson and into Asia Minor. Later still it filled the 

 valley of the Rhone, and approximated to its present out- 

 line, being excluded from Asia Minor ; but the ^gean Sea 

 was a fresh-water lake. The distribution of these deposits 

 in North Africa is shown by means of a map in the 

 chapter on the Sahara and Egyptian deserts ; and evi- 

 dence of the antiquity of the fauna of the Nile is found in 

 the distribution of its life in Syria and Arabia. The 



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