July 27, 1882] 



NATURE 



291 



no-watashi — basket-crossing — is much used in these pro- 

 vinces. A sort of wicker cradle is suspended on hempen 

 ropes slung across the valley, and is drawn by lines 

 to one side or the other, or, as is more usually the case, 

 the peasant crosses without assistance. Entering the 

 cradle, he seizes the ropes above with his hands, and by 

 a series of dexterous jerks, needing considerable practice 

 for their due accomplishment, takes himself and the cage 

 across. The great danger seems to be that of getting the 

 cradle from under him, and thus leaving his body 

 suspended in mid-air. His struggles are represented no 

 less quaintly than vigorously in a drawing by Hokusai, to 

 be found in the 13th volume of his Manguwa, or Rough 

 Sketches. 



A distinguishing feature of the book is the elaborate 

 account given of the principal mountains, most of which 

 have been ascended by the authors. Fuji, of course, 

 is the highest, Dr. Rein making it i2,2So feet, Mr. 

 Stewart 12,365 feet. The curiously jagged outline of the 

 comparatively narrow rim of the crater shows doubtless 

 that the broad deep cavity, of which the diameter is about 

 1500 feet, and the depth about 550 feet, was usually full 

 of boiling lava, spurted up from time to time in the man- 

 ner described by Miss Bird in her graphic description of 

 the great volcanic districts of Kilauea and Mauna Loa. 

 It is not mentioned that the two wells on the summit, on 

 the edge almost of the crater itself, the Famous Golden 

 Water and the Famous Silver Water, derive their supply 

 from hoards of snow preserved by overlying masses of 

 wind-heaped scoriae, and volcanic dust from perishing 

 under the fiery rays of the summer sun. One of the 

 most interesting of the many peaks which Messrs. Satow 

 and Hawes are the only Europeans who have as- 

 cended, is Mount Ganjiu, of which the shapely out- 

 lines rise in beautiful logarithmic curves high over the 

 plains of Nambu. The mountain consists of three 

 volcanic cone-frusta " telescoped " into each other. The 

 lower cone is of course the oldest, the rim of its crater 

 being still distinct at a height of about 5001 feet. A 

 smaller cone about 600 feet high, rises within this, the 

 rim of the crater of which is nearly equally distinct, and 

 a third and smallest cone tops all, having a height of not 

 more than 100 feet, and showing a crater at its summit, 

 from which jets of steam still issue. 



It is noteworthy that in Japan the names of rivers, 

 capes, plains, and villages are usually pure Japanese, those 

 of mountains more commonly Chinese. Some of the 

 place names in the northern part of the main island have 

 a distinctly Aino character, for instance, such a name as 

 Namakunai, and many of the names ending in "b6," a 

 corruption of "betsu," the Aino word for river. 



Two capital maps accompany the book, which the 

 stay-at-home reader will find as full of curious lore as the 

 traveller of valuable information. 



Fredk. V. DlCKINS 



OUR BOOK SHELF 



Studies in Nidderdale. By Joseph Lucas, F.G.S., F.M.S., 



Telford Medallist of the Institution of Civil Engineers, 



Associate of the Institute of Surveyors. (London : 



Elliot Stock. Pateley Bridge: Thomas Thorpe.) 



This book is the result of notes and observations other 



than geological, made in Nidderdale during the progress 



of the Government Geological Survey of that district, 

 between the years 1S67 and 1872. 



Nidderdale is a remote pastoral valley, formed by the 

 River Nidd, which takes its rise near the mountains of 

 Great and Little Whernside, and which, after a course of 

 about thirty-five miles, joins the Ouse near York. 



The basin of the Nidd, above Hampsthwaite, includes 

 an area of eighty square miles, and for sixteen miles from 

 Great Whernside, the valley proper is nowhere more than 

 one mile wide from ridge to ridge, and is from 500 to 800 

 feet deep, forming as it were a deep groove in the vast 

 easterly sloping heather-covered moorland. 



After a few introductory remarks upon the geology and 

 geography of Nidderdale, Mr. Lucas deals with the cattle, 

 sheep, and other matters connected with the farm, including 

 instructive and exhaustive discussions upon the various 

 names. In the dairy department we have the kern old 

 Norse, kirna — a churn), now a revolving barrel or tub, 

 on a horizontal axis, the sile (old Norse, sahl— a sieve), 

 and sine, Saxon sihan — to strain; and the"lile roond 

 thithel " for stirring cream. The old cheese press is 

 described in detail, and there is an excellent drawing of a 

 very old form of that dairy implement, very like such as 

 we remember to have seen long ago in remote rural 

 districts in the north. Then there is a very interesting 

 chapter upon the farm itself, in which Mr. Lucas intro- 

 duces a fanner speaking in the dialect, and describing by 

 their appropriate names and uses, the various buildings, 

 fields, and animals to be found upon his farm ; inter- 

 spersed with these the author has put the various Norse. 

 Anglo-Saxon, or Celtic words, from which many words 

 in the folk speech have been derived, so that we have a 

 means of tracing the sources of the dialect while we are 

 becoming acquainted with its local use. 



Mr. Lucas must have had opportunities such as very 

 few others could have had, to trace out the natural 

 science of the district, and as the passage will give a 

 good idea of concise and clear style in which the book is 

 written, we give an extract from the chapter on " Vestiges 

 of the Ancient Forest. - ' 



"Nidderdale and its moors have formerly been covered 

 by an extensive forest. Many trees lie buried in the peat 

 upon the moors. In the thousands of sections made by 

 little water-courses, the birch appears almost everywhere 

 predominant. Hazel 'sealh 1 (willows), thorn, oaks, Sac, 

 also occur, but the birch must have formed a thick and 

 almost universal forest by itself, such as may be seen on 

 the west coast of Norway at the present day. The upper 

 parts of the moorland gills, and much of what is now the 

 moors, must formerly have made a beautiful appearance 

 with its light gauze-like forest of birch and mountain-ash. 

 The last surviving example on any considerable scale is 

 present in Birk Gill, a tributary of the River Burn. The 

 run of the Gill is north-west to south-east. The Gill is 

 about 400 feet deep at its mouth, and half a mile wide 

 from ridge to ridge. Like all other valleys of the same 

 elevation in these hills, it is boat-shaped in section, the 

 beck running in a deep ravine at the bottom. The sides 

 of the hills are wild heathery moorland, crowned with 

 fine lines of crags down to the edge of this ravine in which 

 the native forest is preserved. There is no cultivation in 

 the Gill, the bottom of which is about 600 feet above the 

 sea at its mouth. The belt of wood clothes the sides for 

 200 feet, or up to 800 feet near its mouth, and ends where 

 the stream reaches 900 feet in a distance of rather more 

 than a mile. Above this the stream is called Barnley 

 Beck. The wood consists of mountain ash, alder, oak. 

 ash, Dirch, holly, and thorn, running above the edge or 

 the e'ef; with a delightfully irregular and feathery margin 

 on l lie ling covered moor." Subjoined to this is an 

 elaborate table giving the aspect, height, and soil of th<- 

 various trees found in this valley. A chapter is devoted to 

 the modern botany of the valley, upon which there are 

 also valuable notes in the introduction by Mr. J. G 



