234 



NA TURE 



[December 24, 190b 



of fluorescein. As an example of the practical results of 

 such researches, it may be mentioned that the village of 

 Mouchard, on the west flank of the range, was found to 

 be utilising an already contaminated water, which ran 

 away out of the public fountain and reappeared as the 

 main supply of Pagnoz, a hamlet on the Salins road. 

 The author complains that it is hard to move local 

 authorities ; but, if Mouchard now becomes grateful, 

 Pagnoz may be doubly so. Messrs. Albert and Alexandre 

 Wary (No. 48) describe the artificial excavations in the 

 chalk at Saint-Martin, Oise, and urge that the movement 

 of water in chalk is controlled by fissures, which are in 

 some cases fault-planes, and not by a general porosity 

 of the rock. Where the chalk is fractured on a small 

 scale, as in the Upper Senonian, owing to tlie vielding 

 character of a particular scries of beds, the water flows 

 along the abundant and delicate crevices ; where, however, 

 there are only coarser joints, these become the prominent 

 and effective water-ways (p. 13J. The caverns in Oise 

 may have been dug out by man as hiding places, but the 

 fissures selected had previously been widened by natural 

 waters. About the twelfth centurv they became used as 

 quarries. This memoir by MM. Mary concludes with an 

 account of the modifications that took place in certain plants 

 removed by the authors from the outer air to the banks 

 of one of the subterranean lakes. .M. Ed. Rahir (No. 51) 

 reports on caves in the Carboniferous Limestone of 

 Belgmm; and .M. Paul Macey (No. 52) carries us awav 

 to lndo-Ch]na, and gives a spirited account of rivers tha't 

 penetrate masses of limestone in the province of Cammon, 

 of which he is Governor. His zeal for exploration is not 

 more commendable than his regard for the religious feel- 

 ings of his subjects. We wonder if all British cave- 

 hunters would have sacrificed a pig and a few fowls before 

 descendmg a haunted river in a collapsible bamboo canoe. 

 I he cheerful description of two days underground on this 

 unknown water-way should satisfy even M. Martel to 

 whom it is presented. The tunnel 'of the Nam Hin-Boun 

 4000 metres long, is, on the other hand, used as a high- 

 way by the natives themselves when the river is low 

 The basin of Hang Nam-Thieng (vessel of holy water) re- 

 minds us of the miraculous stoup attached to an old church 

 in Anglesey; it is about 15 centimetres in diameter, and 

 rc-hlls Itself up to a certain level after water is drawn 

 from It. The French have again allowed the use of its 

 water in ceremonial oaths, according to a practice that 

 had fallen into disuse since the Siamese invasion of 1827. 



The production of valleys and deltas has been studied 

 .-.rtificially by Mr. T. A. Jaggar, iun. ("Experiments 

 Illustrating Erosion and Sedimentation," Bull. Museum 

 of Comp. Zoology, Harvard, vol. xlix., iqoS, p. 285). 

 Various rock-powders are strewn over one another in 

 layers, or slimes from a stamp-mill are deposited from 

 water. The surface is then tilted at 20° and is subjected 

 to a water-spray, furnished bv a compression apparatus 

 and an atomiser such as barbers use. Rill-systems arise 

 on the slime-surface after one or two hours, and illuslra- 

 f'°"s of riv^^cr-capture (p. 2qq) occur among their details. 



Mr. E. K. Pittman, Government geologist of New South 

 Wales, in his Clark memorial lecture (Geol. Survey of 

 New South Wales, Sydney, igo8), has reviewed the very 

 important question of the artesian water-suppiv of 

 Australia. He sees many reasons for opposing the' view 

 of Prof. J. W. Gregory, who has maintained that the 

 water rises from plutonic depths under the influence of 

 earth-pressure, and not as the result of hvdrostatic flow 

 in an artesian basin. Mr. Pittman believes" that the rain- 

 fall on the exposed' edges of the sandstones in the Great 

 Dividing Range in south-eastern Queensland and in the 

 north of New South Wales is sufficient to account for the 

 water stored in the artesian area. He agrees with Prof. 

 J. W. Gregory in deprecating the waste of this water 

 that is at present tolerated. In a coloured map he in- 

 dicates the enormous area of the main basin, extending 

 from the central part of the Dariing River through Queens- 

 land to Cape York. 



Passing to _ the solid form of water, the Acics Ac la 

 SociHi hclvefique des Sciences naturelles, for the ninetieth 

 session at Fribourg, in T907, contains much that is 

 interesting in the study of glaciers. Prof. Muhlberg, of 

 Aarau, reviews (p. qi) the state of Switzcriand during the 

 NO. 2043, VOL. 79] 



Ice age, which he properly regards as a world-wide pheno- 

 menon. He suggests (p. 94) that certain moraines in 

 Alsace were recognised as the deposits of former glaciers 

 so far back as the middle of the eighteenth century ; but 

 all that he really proves is that these ridges were called 

 moraines by settlers from Switzerland. De Saussure tells 

 us that this term, variously spelt in his day, originated 

 in Savoy, where it was applied to any sleeply sloping piece 

 of hillside. Jean-Piene Perraudin, the chamois-hunter of 

 the Val de Bagne, seems still to hold his own as the first 

 to realise that the Swiss glaciers were formerlv of far 

 greater extent. Prof. Jean Brunhes, curiously enough, 

 emphasises the observations of Perraudin on glacial stria; 

 in a paper on " Le Probleme de I'E osion et du Surcreuse- 

 ment glaciaire " (ibirf., p. 155). Prof. Brunhes seeks to 

 show that there is little real distinction between geo- 

 graphical features that are claimed as of glacial origin 

 and those produced by rivers. A main stream, he urges 

 (p. 164), will cut down its bed below those of its tribu- 

 taries, though the difference of level will diminish as the 

 river-system grows older. We hardly follow him when he 

 sees the U-fonii. commonly held to result from glacial 

 action, repeated in the floor of the Colorado canyon ; but 

 he points out very usefully that the streams under the ice 

 I near each margin of a glacier often produce two parallel 

 siircreusonciits of the valley-floor, with a glaciated rock- 

 ridge between them (p. i6b). This common phenomenon, 

 which he illustrates by photographs, is very different from 

 Ihe trough-like form which the advocates of glacial erosion 

 attribute to rapidly moving ice. While Prof. Brunhes 

 believes that the subglacial water is the main agent in 

 lowering the valley-floor, he shows how abrasion by ice 

 may ultimately remove the central rib which characterises 

 earlier stages of erosion. The two agents must be re- 

 garded as working together, and not in succession to one 

 another, if we would correctly appreciate valley-forms. 



The twelfth report of the Commission Internationale 

 (ies Glaciers, in which variations of glaciers are recorded 

 from all parts of (he world, appears in the second volume 

 of the Annalcs dc Glaciologie (1908), pp. iCi-iq8. An 

 abstract of this, by M. Forel, has been already reviewed 

 in Nature by Prof. Bonney (vol. Ixxviii., p. .i;74). In 

 Naturcn. published in Bergen, vol. xxxii. (1908), p. 118, 

 Herr J. Rekstad records both recessions and advances 

 among Norwegian glaciers between 1900 and 1907. The 

 cold summers of iqo2, iqo3, and 1904 are responsible for 

 many advances and thickenings in the lower parts of the 

 ice-streams, and the full results of that of 1907 have yet 

 to manifest themselves. 



Mr. H. H. Hayden's " Notes on Certain Glaciers in 

 North-west Kashmir " (Records, Geol. Survey of India, 

 vol. XXXV., 1907, part iii., p. 127) records the establish- 

 ment of stations bv which rates of movement may be 

 determined. The Yengutsa Glacier has advanced about 

 two miles since 1002, and has overwhelmed mills that then 

 ''xisted , in a stream-cut stretching from its foot. The 

 Hassanabad Glacier, on the evidence of competent native 

 ofTicials, advanced " about three years ago " six miles or 

 more in two and a half months. It seems liable to extra- 

 ordinarily rapid fluctuations, and is now said to be 

 stationary. Clearly, accurate records will be of special 

 interest in this case. Other glaciers in Kashmir show 

 " steady secular retreat." One would like to learn if the 

 local advances can be traced to exceptional snowfalls, or 

 even to earthquakes, as in recent instances in Alaska. The 

 great attraction of Mr. Hayden's paper lies in the superb 

 photographic plates by which it is illustrated. That of 

 the Hassanabad Glacier lying in its ravine is especially 

 successful. 



In the Bulletin of the American Geographical Society, 

 vol. xxxix.. March, 1907, Messrs. Tarr and Martin com- 

 ment on Prof. Russell's conclusion that the Hubbard 

 Glacier of .Alaska has receded five miles since 1794. 

 From their personal experiences in 1906, they hold that 

 Malaspina's remarks on ice as an obstacle in the bay 

 referred only to floating ice, and this seems confirmed 

 bv the evidence of the vegetation and by the occurrence 

 of wave-cut shore-lines in the region which, according to 

 Russell, would have been covered a century ago bv glacier- 



Perliaps 



include in Ihis notice Messr 



