August 28, 19 19] 



NATURE 



503 



all English geolog^ists, and the fame of "Das 

 itlitz " has spread over the whole world. Yet 

 le has increased, rather than diminished, our 

 >preciation of its great qualities, and we take 

 advantage of this opportunity to express our 

 admiration for its superb mastery over detail and 

 the acute vision which have combined to give us 

 in true p>erspective so many faithful pictures of 

 terrestrial structure ; for its power of synthesis, 

 -discovering in the midst of the most diverse 

 •phenomena an underlying unity ; for its freshness 

 of explanation, always surprising us with novel 

 theories and hypotheses ; and for many bold con- 

 "ceptions, which, whether we accept them or not, 

 are always valuable for what they suggest if for 

 "nothing else. The delight with which we follow 

 the author through the most complicated descrip- 

 tions or discussions is increased by the vigour of 

 his language, with its occasional ascent into spon- 

 taneous eloquence under the inspiration of great 

 ideas. As we read, we are conscious of a new 

 spirit which has broken loose from ancient 

 dogmas and leads us forth to fresh conquests of 

 the unknown. 



It was the French geologists who were the 

 first to welcome the appearance of the new 

 g^eology and undertook the translation of 

 "Das Antlitz " into their language under the 

 direction of M. Emmanuel de Margerie. The first 

 volume of "La Face de la Terre " appeared in 

 1897 ; it opens with a thoughtful and appreciative 

 preface by Marcel Bertrand. The last part was 

 published last year {1918). It fitly concludes with 

 an eloquent eulogy by M. Pierre Termier. 



"La Face de la Terre " is an improvement on 

 the original. As a translation it is absolutely 

 faithful, and in the hands of masters of French 

 prose like M. de Margerie and his colleagues, 

 it gains by the added grace and lucidity which 

 are inseparable from the French language. But 

 it is much more than a translation ; by the addi- 

 tion of numerous footnotes and illustrations it 

 becomes a new edition. 



The added illustrations are particularly wel- 

 come, those of the original work being wholly 

 inadequate. Suess, when he wrote his masterly 

 descriptions, had a mass ot material, maps, 

 sections, and drawings before his eyes, but, 

 limited probably by considerations of expense, he 

 introduced only 168 figures into the text. The 

 French have given us more than thrice this 

 number (in all 552 figures), and yet without 

 greatly increasing the price. Even with this 

 wealth of illustration we are not content, and still 

 ask for more, especially for a few simple diagrams 

 which would enable us to grasp with greater 

 facility some of the new conceptions with which 

 the work abounds. 



The added notes, which are distinguished from 

 those in the original by square brackets, are of 

 great value ; they bring the bibliographical refer- 

 ences up to date, and when necessary point out 

 how far the author's conclusions must be modified 

 in the light of later knowledge. 

 NO. 2600, VOL. 103] 



The English translation, which was com- 

 menced (in 1904) much later than the French, and 

 completed, so far as the body of the work is con- 

 cerned, much earlier (in 1908), contains no new 

 matter. We may hope that it will be supple- 

 mented by an atlas at some future date ; mean- 

 while the student must have recourse to the 

 French edition. That the English translation does 

 not yet possess an index is a consequence of the 

 war ; the MS. has been in the hands of the printers 

 for many years past. 



The last part of the third volume of " La Face de 

 la Terre," which is the immediate subject of this 

 review, fully maintains the high standard of its 

 predecessors. The first chapter, entitled 

 "Analysis," presents us with an admirable 

 survey of the structural features of mountain 

 chains as revealed by a long series of brilliant 

 investigations, which, begun long ago by Lap- 

 worth, were continued by Peach and Home at 

 home, and by numerous observers abroad, among 

 whom Bertrand and Lugeon are pre-eminent. 

 What a surprising revolution has been accom- 

 plished in our knowledge will be understood at 

 a glance if we turn to the section across the Alps 

 represented in Fig. 340 on p. 1448, where we 

 are shown how the accumulated sediments of 

 ancient seas have been transported in successive 

 flows which have carried them many miles from 

 their source and repeatedly doubled them one over 

 the other in long, flat-lying folds. A satisfactory 

 explanation of this phenomenon is still to seek; 

 theory is completely outdistanced by observation. 



The next chapter, entitled "The Depths," casts 

 a p>enetrating glance into the interior of the earth 

 and throws light on the various forms of igneous 

 activity within the crust. A chapter on "The 

 Origin and Distribution of Volcanoes " follows; 

 it includes a brief account of the diamond pipes 

 of South Africa. Then comes a chapter on 

 "The Moon: Various Hypotheses and a Retro- 

 spect." In this we meet with some valuable 

 suggestions on the question of isostasy. The 

 illustrations added in the French edition are no- 

 where more welcome than in this place. The dis- 

 cussion of /isostasy involves, however, mathe- 

 matical treatment with which Suess does not seem 

 to have been familiar, otherwise he would have 

 scarcely proposed to neglect that factor in the 

 reduction of observations which is commonly 

 known as the Bourgeur correction, for, as Col. 

 Lenox Conyngham has remarked, such a proposal 

 is equivalent to asserting that it makes no differ- 

 ence whether the pendulum observations were 

 made on a lofty tableland or in a balloon poised 

 at the same altitude over a plain at sea-level. 



The last chapter, "La Vie," Is devoted to 

 many interesting reflections on sundry problems 

 concerned with the history of life on the globe, 

 the migrations of faunas, and the preservation, 

 amidst the revolutions of land and sea, of living 

 beings in places of refuge or "asylums," the 

 situation of which and their geological characters 

 afford interesting material for discussion. 



