52 



NA TURE 



[May 17,1^77 



logical committee, and the additions to this number are made by 

 the Government on the recommendation of the committee itself. 

 The geological committee may nominate for appointment by 

 the Government as associate members, the assistants which it 

 will require for the execution of the work, and it will regulate 

 their remuneration subject to ministerial approbation. This com- 

 mittee will settle the legend cf the map, as well as all details 

 which can be regulated in advance ; it will determine by 

 whom and under what conditions the geological work is to 

 be carried on, and it will decide upon the memoirs or other 

 works connected with the geology of the country, which are to 

 be published as accompaniments of the map. Each published 

 sheet of the map will bear the name of its author. The geo- 

 logical committee will communicate through the director wilh 

 the cartographical committee before the final printing off of the 

 sheets of the map. The cartographical committee will com- 

 prise five members, including the director-president, all ap- 

 pointed by the Ciovernment. The Director will convoke the 

 committees as often as he considers necessary and at least 

 once in three months. It will be his duty to superin- 

 tend the execution of the work determined by the committees, 

 and to give an account of its progress at every quarterly meet- 

 ing. He will also present annually to Government a report upon 

 the whole work connected with the map and upon the employ- 

 ment of the funds placed at his disposal. These regulations em- 

 body the views of the majority of the Geological Society of 

 Belgium, but from the keen and prolonged debate on the subject 

 (well reported in the Bidhtin), it is clear that some members of 

 the Society shrewdly foresee the difficulties which are sure to 

 arise if these regulations are finally adopted by the Govern- 

 ment. The whole scheme is too cumbrous. Unless the 

 president happens to be a man of singular powers, it will be a 

 matter of herculean labour to get a harmonious and complete 

 result out of the independent work of two committees, who need 

 not be summoned above once a quarter, and who are not com- 

 pelled to have any direct communication with each other 

 imtil just before the final issue of each sheet of the map. 

 The actual survey will be made, in part at least, by paid 

 assistants. Their work will be subjected to the criticism of the 

 geological committee, the majority of which may change from 

 time to time, thus affording no guarantee of uniformity of 

 system. The maps, after coming out of the ordeal of this com- 

 mittee, will pafs under that of the cartographers, who, it seems, 

 are to have full power to bring out the maps in any style or 

 shape they choose, and who may "possibly be quite unacquainted 

 with geological requirements. We can anticipate the as'.unish- 

 ment with which some fine day one of the assistants may peruse 

 a published copy of his own "feuille." Perhaps his name 

 engraved at the bottom of the sheet may be the only indication 

 he will recognise of his association in a work with which his 

 connection ceased when he handed his field-maps over to the 

 geological committee. It is to be hoped that the Government 

 will reduce this somewhat complicated machinery. A respon- 

 sible director, with, if need be, a small council of geologists, 

 palnsontologists, and map-makers with whom he might from time 

 to time consult, would be sufficient to organise a staff of field- 

 surveyors and to carry out in fullest detail and in complete 

 harmony a geological survey of the country. 



Ice-Work in Labrador. — I\Ir. IT. Y. Hind, who h.is already 

 published much valuable information regarding the glacial pheno- 

 mena of British North America, has recently visited part of the 

 north-eastern coast of Labrador., and has prepared some notes of 

 the chief geological results of the journey. His coirtributions to 

 our knowledge of the glaciation of that part of the world are of 

 special interest, and will no doubt be welcomed by those geolo- 

 gists who still maintain the potency of icebergs and floating-ice 

 over glaciers and ice-cap. He describes the "pan-ice" of the 



Labrador coast — that is, the frozen sea-water of the bays and 

 shallow seas along the coast, and shows that though in winter it 

 has no lateral motion but merely rises and falls with the tides, in 

 spring and summer it breaks up into j-iieces or "pans" from a few 

 square yards to many acres in extent. These "pans" pressed by 

 the south-east Arctic current against the coast, and accommo- 

 dating themselves to all its sinuosities, are pushed over the low 

 islands and promontories with irresistible force, grinding and 

 polishing the hard rocks, rasping the sides of steeper cliffs, and 

 driving before them every boulder and pebble which may be 

 lying on the surface, as well as any blocks which they may be 

 able to detach from the solid rocks. The same kind of aeiion 

 takes place in the shallow seas, the bottom of which, down to a 

 depth of twelve or fifteen feet, is smoothed and planed by the 

 drifting ice. While the prevalent drift is from the north-we-t 

 out of Davis Strait, a change of wind sometimes brings the end- 

 less chain of loose ice back again. The rocks are again abraded 

 and the loose blocks are driven to and fro until they acquire the 

 true boulder-form. In the sheltered depressions of the sea-flour 

 accumulations oi ilcbiis must be taking place like some varietlts 

 of boulder-clay. Mr. Hind remarks that this form of ice-work 

 goes on over hundreds of miles of coast. He assumes that it has 

 been the means of smoothing and polishing the rocks of Labrador 

 up to a Ireight of many hundred feet above the sea during the 

 gradual elevation of the land. At the same time he states that 

 though he believes the] deep fjords to have been excavated by 

 glaciers, he has found after the most careful search only one 

 example of 'gLicial strix. An obvious objection will occur to 

 many readers ; it may be that the smoothing and polishing 

 of the hills of Labrador has not been done by pan-ice but 

 by solid sheets of land-ice which moved over the courrtry, 

 no doubt grooving and striating it from end to end. All 

 that pan-ice has effected may have been merely the rubbing 

 down of the exposed parts of this general glaciated surface, and 

 the consequent removal of the stria?. The sea-bottom off the 

 Labrador coast freezes irr sixty and seventy feet of water, forming 

 what is called "anchor-ice." Seals taken in seal-nets from 

 depths of ten or fifteen fathoms are often fourrd frozen solid 

 when brought to the surface, where, however, ihey thaw in a 

 few hours. The Labrador climate, as is well known, owes much 

 of its severity to the constant supply of ice drifted past it from 

 the north. Mr. Hind examined thousands of icebergs near at 

 hand last summer, and in only one or two instances did he 

 detect upon them any foreign m.iterial. He concludes that true 

 icebergs have little opportunity of transporting rock and debris, 

 though he admits that where they ground they may be deepening 

 the water by their incessant rolling and grinding, as the swell of the 

 sea sways them to and fro. He speaks of a loose fringe of such 

 stranded bergs on banks at a distance of ten or fifteen miles from 

 the outermost islands, extending for hundreds of miles along the 

 coast of north-eastern Labrador. These banks intercept the ice- 

 bergs and prevent them approaching nearer to the land, so that 

 it is only the broken fragments of the smaller "foundered" 

 bergs which enter the fjords and channels. 



Human Remains in a Raised Beach. — During the recent 

 long'excursion of the geology class of the University of Kdin- 

 burgh, an interesting find was made in the raised beach to the 

 west of rittenweem, on the coast of Fife. The storms of last 

 winter have cut away some new slices of the coast, and laid 

 bare fresh sections of the low raised beach which fringes the 

 more sheltered parts of that coast-line. Tortions of the skull, 

 arm, and shoulder-bones of a full-grown skeleton were observed 

 protruding from an upper argillaceous layer of the undisturbed 

 gravel of this raised beach. In examining them, one of the 

 phalanges of a child was likewise obtained. Some additional 

 bones were picked up orr the beach, but the greater part of the 

 skeleton had no doubt been removed by the waves. From the 



