2l6 



NA TURE 



[December 27, 1900 



In Part v. the subject of Forest Reserves is elaborately dealt 

 with by Mr. Henry Gannet and others. An endeavour is made 

 to estimate the present amount of woodland distributed in the 

 different States. Texas has the largest area, of about 64,000 

 square miles, vi-hile Arkansas has the largest percentage of 

 woodland. The question of the protection of forests is one 

 that is engaging much attention, so that the statistics and 

 general information here brought together must be of great 

 value. The report is illustrated by an atlas. 



Of the Twentieth Annual Report we have received Part i. 

 and Part vi. (2 vols. ). Part i. contains the report of the Director, 

 Mr. Charles D. Walcott, an admirable record of systematic 

 work, which evidently receives the sympathy and substantial 

 support of Congress. The appendix contains details of 

 triangulation and spirit-levelling, and the work is accompanied 

 by maps showing the progress of the surveys. Part vi. is on 

 the Mineral Resources for 1898, the subject being under the 

 direction of Mr. David T. Day. The total value of the mineral 

 productions is the largest ever recorded in the history of the 

 United States. All the metals, except nickel, made large gains, 

 copper, lead, zinc, aluminium and antimony reaching their 

 maximum, both in production and value. The amount of pig- 

 iron produced was greater than in any other year, but the value 

 was less. The non-metallic products also show an increase, 

 especially bituminous coal, and in a lesser degree stone, 

 petroleum and natural gas. The coal product amounted to 

 about two hundred millions of tons. 



Monographs. 

 Monograph No. 32, Part ii. , is a large and handsome volume 

 on the Geology of the Yellowstone National Park, by Mr. 

 Arnold Hague and numerous colleagues. It opens with an 

 account, by Messrs. J. P. Iddings and W. H. Weed, of the 

 Gallatin Mountains, which consist of sedimentary strata ranging 

 from Cambrian to Carboniferous, Jura-Trias, and Cretaceous 

 (Laramie). Disturbances at the close of the Laramie formation 

 were accompanied by igneous intrusions in the form of large 

 laccolites, mainly andesitic in character. Electric Peak and 

 Sepulchre Mountain are described as parts of a Tertiary volcano 

 which was faulted across the conduit, the amount of vertical 

 displacement having been more than 5000 feet. 



Mr. Hague describes a mountainous area in the southern part of 

 the Park, comprising ridges formed partly of Palaeozoic but chiefly 

 of Cretaceous rocks. The irregular outline of the mountains is 

 due to the rhyolites of the Park Plateau that abut against the 

 slopes of the upturned sedimentary strata. The Snake River hot 

 springs are situated near the contact of the rhyolite with the 

 Madison (Carboniferous) limestone, whence the travertine of the 

 springs is derived. Mr. Iddings gives a particular account of the 

 Miocene volcano of Crandall Basin, which arose on a ridge of 

 Palseozoic rocks and on remnants of Eocene breccias and lava 

 flows. The volcano consisted of andesitic breccias capped by 

 })asalt flows and traversed by dykes. It must have risen 13,400 

 feet above the limestone floor. The igneous rocks of the Absaroka 

 range, and others which lie within Yellowstone Park, are specially 

 dealt with by Mr. Iddings. The Cambrian fossils are described 

 by Mr. C. D. Walcott, the Devonian and Carboniferous by Mr. 

 G. H. Girty, the Mesozoic by Mr. T. W. Stanton, and the 

 Fossil Flora (Laramie and Tertiary) by Mr. F. H. Knowlton. 



Monograph No. 33 contains an account of the geology of the 

 Narragansett Basin, a tract which includes Providence on the 

 north and Newport on the south, being parts of Rhode Island 

 and Massachusetts. The section on general geology is con- 

 tributed by Mr. N. S. Shaler, while the detailed accounts are 

 furnished by Mr. J. B. Woodworth and Dr. A. F. Foerste. 

 Mr. Shaler remarks that the region originally contained an ex- 

 tensively developed series of pre-Cambrian roks, which "may 

 for convenience be referred to that limbo of ill-discriminated 

 formations, the Upper Archaean (of Dana), or Algonkian." On 

 these lie remnants of the Olenellus-beds of the Lower Cambrian, 

 and above these are granites which have broken through the 

 Cambrian, and have in turn been much eroded. On top lie 

 the Carboniferous strata, which occupy the greater part of the 

 basin and attain a thickness of several thousand feet. The 

 general proposition is that this and other basins which lie along 

 the Atlantic coast from Newfoundland to North Carolina are 

 old river valleys which have been depressed below the sea-level, 

 filled with sediments — the sedimentation increasing the depth 

 of the depression — and afterwards corrugated by the mountain- 

 building forces. The memoir is well illustrated with maps, 

 sections and pictorial plates. 



NO. 1626, VOL. 63] 



Monograph No. 34 is on the glacial gravels of Maine and 

 their associated deposits, by Mr. George H. Stone. The sub- 

 ject is treated with a wealth of letterpress (499 pages) and 

 illustrations. It is essentially a local memoir, but as the result 

 of careful observations commenced so long ago as 1876, it is 

 a most valuable record of facts on water- assorted glacial drift, 

 useful to those studying glacial features, terraces, eskers and 

 the probable eff'ects of subglacial and englacial streams. 



In Monograph No. 36 the Crystal Falls iron-bearing district 

 of Michigan is described by Messrs. J. Morgan Clements and 

 H. LI. Smyth. This is the third of a series of reports on the 

 iron-bearing districts of Lake Superior. The iron-ore (haematite 

 and limonite) occurs in the Upper Huronian series. It is 

 associated with white and reddish chert, and lies between car- 

 bonaceous slates in synclinal troughs. The memoir, however, 

 deals with the structure, stratigraphy and physiography of a 

 large area, approximately 540 square miles, and not only with 

 Archaean and Huronian, but more particularly with various 

 volcanic and intrusive rocks, microscopic sections of which form 

 a main feature in the illustrations. A general introduction is 

 written by Mr. C. R. Van Hise, and a final chapter on the 

 Sturgeon River tongue in the south-eastern part of the district 

 is by Mr. W. S. Bay ley. 



Monograph No. 37 is on the Fossil Flora of the Lower Coal- 

 measures of Missouri, by Mr. David White, and is illustrated 

 by seventy-two plates of Carboniferous plants, and one of a coal- 

 seam. 



Monograph No. 38, a large volume of 817 pages, numerous 

 maps and other illustrations, is given up to a description of the 

 Illinois Glacial Lobe, by Mr. Frank Leverett. This ice-tract 

 formed the south-western part of the great ice-field that formerly 

 extended from the high lands east and south of Hudson Bay 

 over the basins of the Great Lakes and the north-central States 

 as far as the Mississippi Valley. It overlapped a previously 

 glaciated region on the south-west, whose drift was derived from 

 ice which moved southward from the central portion of Canada. 

 The evidence for separating the drift of the Illinois glacial lobe 

 from the outlying and underlying drift is briefly stated. Remark- 

 able instances of the transportation of limestone ledges are 

 noted. These ledges in some instances occupy an area of 

 several acres. They have been moved westward from the crest 

 of rock ridges without completely destroying their stratification. 

 Descriptions are given of well-defined soils and weathered zones 

 which occur between successive accumulations of drift ; various 

 moraines and associated sheets of till are described, and there is 

 a general discussion on the influence of the drift on drainage 

 systems. The thickness of the Illinois drift is estimated at from 

 100 to 130 feet, and its bearing on water-supply is fully con- 

 sidered. Reference is made to gas-wells. In some the gas 

 appears to be derived from the decay of vegetable matter in the 

 drift ; in most cases, however, it is probable that the underlying 

 rocks contribute the gas, which is pent up beneath compact 

 drift beds. A final chapter treats of soils, and these are classi- 

 fied into residuary soils, boulder-clay soils, gravelly, sandy and 

 bluff-loess soils, silts slowly pervious to water, fine silts nearly 

 impervious, and peaty or organic soils. The residuary soils 

 show variations which correspond in a rude way with variations 

 in the structure of the rocks, whether shale, limestone or sand- 

 stone, from which they are derived. 



ON THE RELA TIONS OF RADIA TION TO 

 TEMPERA TURE. 1 



'T'HE key to this subject is the principle, arrived at inde- 

 -^ pendently by Balfour Stewart and Kirchhoff about the 

 year 1857, that the constitution and intensity of the steady 

 radiation in an enclosure is determined by the temperature of 

 the surrounding bodies, and involves no other element. It was 

 pointed out by Stewart ^ that if the enclosure contains a radia- 

 ting and absorbing body which is put in motion, the temperature 

 being uniform throughout, then the constitutions of the radia- 

 tion in front of it and behind it will diff"er on account of the 

 Doppler eff"ect, so that there will be a chance of gaining 

 mechanical work in the restoration of a uniform state. There 

 must thus be some kind of thermodynamic compensation, which 

 might arise from sethereal friction, or from work required to 



1 A paper read by Dr. J. Larmor, F.R.S., before Section A of the 

 British Association at Bradford, September, igoo. 



- Brit. Assoc. Report, 1871 ; cf. also Encyc. Brit., art.Z" Radiation " 

 (t886), by Tait. 



