NA TURE 



289 



THURSDAY, JULY 28, 1904. 



THE GEOLOGIST AS GEOGRAPHER. 

 North America. (The Regions of the World Series.) 

 By Prof. Israel C. Russell. Pp. viii + 43S ; 7 coloured 

 maps and 39 other illustrations. (London, Edin- 

 burgh, and Glasgow : Henry Frowde, 1904.) Price 

 ys. 6d. net. 



THE geologist might well rest content with the 

 usefulness of his science even if its only harvest 

 were the revolution which it has wrought in man's 

 conception of his mundane surroundings as expressed 

 in the new geography. It may be that here and there 

 the geographer still lingers who is satisfied to bound 

 his ideas at the surface of things and to lose hold of 

 reality in his dream of eternal seas and everlasting 

 hills. It is true that the old geography still persists 

 in children's school-books as ancestral customs still 

 linger in children's games, and that the dehneation of 

 county boundaries and the names of obscure villages 

 are still drilled painfully into the youthful mind as 

 essentials of earthly knowledge. But the antique 

 trammels have at least been loosened ; and not in the 

 .'Vraericas only is it that a new world has been dis- 

 covered by the geographer. 



We could not wish for a better exemplification of 

 new spirit than may be found in the lucid description 

 of a great continent which lies before us. Prof. 

 Russell quotes with approbation the saying that 

 " geography is the geology of to-day," and through- 

 out his book we are made to feel that in its every 

 aspect the present condition of the land is the 

 evanescent expression of all preceding time. It is not 

 without cause that " prehistoric " time is relegated, 

 in his chart on p. 309, to the period preceding the 

 .Xrchsean, and that from the beginning of geological 

 evidence he regards all time as historic. 



To the geologist the sea is only land inconveniently 

 covered by water, and we are therefore prepared to find 

 that Prof. Russell's idea of the North American 

 continent is not bounded by the coast-line, but includes 

 the submerged " continental shelf." The first chapter 

 of his book deals with this shelf, its structure, its river 

 valleys, its marine life and its geological history, with 

 that of the land margin by which it is bounded. 



Then, in chapter ii., the topography of the land 

 is described under the broad headings of (i) coastal 

 plains and plateaus; (2) .Atlantic mountains; (3) 

 continental basin ; (4) Pacific mountains ; (5) An- 

 lillean mountains. This part of the book is 

 vitalised by the author's wide personal know- 

 ledge of the continent, gained in the service of the 

 U..S. Geological Survey, and by his keen sympathy in 

 wild nature. With vivid touches of description, sure 

 ■■ind true, and free from the cloying sentiment by which 

 such attempts are too often overclouded, he brings 

 before us the feeling aroused in him by the varied 

 scenes of the wide continent. There are many 

 passages which we should have liked to reproduce, 

 but, lacking space, we must content ourselves by re- 

 ferring, as examples, to the bird's-eye view of the 

 NO. 18 I 3, VOL. 70] 



prairie plains (p. 97) ; to the expression of their strain- 

 ing monotony (p. 103) ; to the sketches of the fantastic 

 Bad Lands (p. in), of the glorious summits of the 

 Californian Sierra (p. 151), and of the dense forests 

 around Puget Sound (p. 240). 



Tlie third chapter deals with the climate of the 

 continent, and, like every other part of the book, goes 

 back to first principles in the course of the exposition, 

 so that the untrained reader may gather much general 

 as well as special knowledge by a studious perusal 

 of it. We imagine that if the writer had been a 

 Canadian his southern boundary for the " boreal 

 zone," as shown on the map, plate iii., would have 

 been somewhat differently arranged, and that it would 

 not have included Vancouver Island and the coast of 

 British Columbia, nor have divided Manitoba from the 

 greater part of North Dakota. The description of the 

 agriculture of this zone is contained in the following 

 sentences : — 



" On account of the low mean annual temperature 

 [of the northern portion of the zone], and especially 

 because of the shortness of the growing season, agri- 

 culture is of small importance. Along its southern 

 border, more especially in south-eastern Canada and 

 Newfoundland, such small fruits as currants, huckle- 

 berries, raspberries, blackberries, cranberries. Sec, 

 grow wild and yield abundant returns when cultivated. 

 In favoured localities white potatoes, turnips, beet, and 

 certain varieties of the apple, as well as the more 

 hardy cereals, are cultivated with moderate success " 

 (p. 202). 



As practically the whole of Canada, except small 

 portions of the south of Ontario and Quebec, is 

 relegated to this zone, the above statement is decidedly 

 inadequate. We notice also that in the margin of the 

 map referred to there is a letterpress indication to 

 symbols which are not visible on the map. 



The plant life of the continent is described in 

 chapter iv. , wherein the characteristic features of the 

 great forests, the cactus plains, the treeless prairies, 

 the sage-brush lands, and the .Arctic tundra are in turn 

 presented. In this part we recognise that the author 

 shares the repugnance felt by every good .American 

 to the term " desert " as applied to the arid lands 

 of the western States. So, in the map which forms 

 the frontispiece to the volume, all the sage-brush 

 and cactus country is swept into the " grassland " 

 division, to which term, however, the qualification, 

 "partly with Scrub, &c.," is added in the index. 

 A'et, even allowing for the potential irrigation of 

 limited oases in the future, there are vast stretches 

 that must remain, as at present, worthy only of the 

 name of desert, and such herbage as they have is 

 desert-herbage. In concluding his account of the 

 plant life, the author refers briefly to the slow migra- 

 tion of forests under geological changes of climate by 

 which nature, like a careful husbandman, secures a 

 rotation of crops. 



" The suggestion in this connection furnished by 

 geologists is that we are living in a spring-time follow- 

 ing the great winter, known as the Glacial epoch, and 

 that the tropical, temperate, and subarctic forests are 

 migrating northward in an orderly march, and each 

 in turn ascending higher and higher on the more lofty 

 mountains " (p. 257). 



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