February 20, 1902J 



NA TURt: 



full account of drums or drumlins, which in some way 

 or other are closely related to moraines, the proceedings 

 of the Glacier Conference held at Gletsch in August, 

 [899, a section on the distinctions and nomenclature of 

 moraines, a glossary and list of synonyms, and indices 

 of authors and subjects. After answering, by quotations 

 from writers, beginning with .Sebastian Miinster in 1544, 

 the question, What is meant by a glacier ? he passes on 

 to moraines, which are at first mentioned casually, with- 

 out any definite name. This does not appear till rather 

 late in the eighteenth century, about the time of De 

 Saussure. The word, no doubt of patois origin, was not 

 admitted to dictionaries or encyclopedias till well on in 

 the following century. According to Littre its origin is 

 unknown, though it evidently is related to the Low Latin 

 mprena — bank of stones — which also appears in Italian 

 under the older form, mora, and in Piedmontese murena 

 designates earth piled in a bank by the side of a field. 

 We also learn that in the German Alps the names 

 Gandii, Gandecken, Mdroii's and JMurren are used, the last 

 perhaps restricted to the l7--tzthal district. Then follows 

 a long series of abstracts or extracts chronologically 

 arranged from the works of travellers by whom moraines 

 •have been noticed or described. 



Before the first quarter of the nineteenth century the 

 accounts become definite, von Charpentier in iSig 

 pointing out that some of the material in a terminal 

 moraine travelled on, some under, the ice. The different 

 varieties are clearly distinguished by F. J. Hugi m 1830, 

 from which time the study assumes a scientific aspect, 

 J. de Charpentier four years later clearly recognising old 

 moraines. They began to be identified in other coun- 

 tries ; C. Martins, in 1841, compared the glaciers of 

 Spitzbergen and the Alps, and showed that moraines were 

 also associated with the former. At the same time the 

 study of everything associated with glaciers received a 

 fresh impulse from the investigations of Agassiz, and 

 from this date ground moraine {gruiid niordne or moraine 

 profonde) begins to figure in books (though we believe 

 he spoke only of couche de boiic). Of this, perhaps, not 

 so much is now heard as some quarter of a century ago, 

 when a glacier might have assumed Diruit, JEdificai as 

 a motto, for it was credited with scooping out a deep 

 lake basin in one place and laying down a thick cushion 

 of '"till" in another. The most important additions to 

 knowledge since the valuable summary in Dr. Heim's 

 " Handbuch der Gletscherkunde" 11884) have been Prof 

 T. C. Chamberlin's observations, completed by his 

 studies in Greenland, that in large glaciers an amount 

 •of material, greater than was generally supposed, is 

 transported embedded in the ice (englacial), particularly 

 in the lower part, in which, owing to shearing move- 

 ments, it often assumes a rude stratification. Thus 

 in certain circumstances, a very remarkable instance 

 of which was described in 1898 by Profs. Garwood and 

 Gregory, materials may even be carried uphill for a 

 certain distance. 



Students will find the twenty pages containing a sum- 

 mary of what has been written about drumlins or drums 

 very useful for reference, though whether they will arrive 

 at a clear conviction of how these were formed is less 

 certain. That, however, is the fault of the subject, not 

 of the author, for they are among the greatest puzzles 



NO. r686, VOL. 65] 



in glacial geology. In America, in some districts of 

 which they seem to be especially well developed, they 

 form oval hills, occasionally as much as a mile in length, 

 their breadth being about two-thirds of this, and they 

 rise, according to their area, from 25 to 200 feet in 

 height. They are composed of similar material to till, 

 with slight or no signs of stratification, and when 

 numerous show a rude parallelism. The principal facts 

 in regard to their structure are generally admitted, but 

 here unanimity ceases. 



We owe a debt of gratitude to the author of this work. 

 In such a subject, indeed in any one connected with 

 glaciers, the task of searching through its literature is 

 most laborious, and as the student often finds hypothetical 

 inferences more abundant than careful descriptions of 

 facts, he is tempted to doubt, as did the charity boy when 

 he got to the end of the alphabet, " whether it was worth 

 going through so much to get to so little." This book, 

 with its summaries and useful indices, will enable him to 

 ascertain what observations are on record and what 

 hypotheses have been formulated. He will also find, in 

 the account of the conference in 1899, the latest classifi- 

 cations proposed (in which, we think, over-minute dis- 

 tinctions are attempted), and will be enabled to begin 

 personal investigations with a general knowledge of 

 previous opinions, more than which is apt to be a 

 hindrance rather than an advantage. T. G. B. 



CHEMISTRY OF PAINTS. 

 The Chemistry of Pigatettts. By E. J. Parry and J. H. 

 Coste. Pp. viii + 280. (London : Scott, Greenwood 

 and Co., 1902.) Price loj-. bd. net. 



THIS book is divided into four parts or chapters. 

 The first of these, occupying just seventeen pages, 

 deals with the optical origin of colour ; the second 

 chapter, entitled the "Application of Pigments," discusses 

 in separate sections their purely artistic uses, their decora- 

 tive employment and their protective cjualities. These 

 sections are followed by descriptions of the methods of 

 applying pigments, including pastel, water-colour, tem- 

 pera, oil-painting, keramic painting, enamelling, glass and 

 mosaic. Large use is made, in the first of these sections 

 of chapter ii., of Russell and Abney's 1S8S report on the 

 "Action of Light on Water-Colours," and in the third 

 section of Mr. Harry Smith's recent experiments on the 

 protection against the rusting of iron afforded by many 

 different kinds of paints. The two chapters which con- 

 stitute the body of the work before us and occupy a couple 

 of hundred pages are entitled respectively " Inorganic 

 Pigments" and "Organic Pigments." Here we find 

 much information of interest and importance in the actual 

 analyses given of individual samples of different pigments 

 and in the notes on methods of examining and testing 

 pigments. But some pigments, such, for instance, as 

 aureolin and cadmium yellow, are treated too summarily 

 in view of their artistic importance, while to other pig- 

 ments, notably to the large group of "coal-tar lakes," is 

 assigned a treatment which they do not deserve. 



And here the question forces itself upon a reviewer's 

 attention, " For what class of readers has this book 

 been written?" The authors speak in their preface of 

 " those who are called upon to use or examine pigments 



