78 



NATURE 



\_May 30, 1872 



philosophical botanists so remarkably exhibited in this 

 country at the present time ; and to hear it spoken of 

 even by biologists with a covert contempt. 



We make these comments with no desire to detract from 

 the great work which the Board of Studies for the Natural 

 Science School at Oxford is doing, in attempting to elevate 

 Natural Sciencetoaprcstigeequaltothatof theolderstudies 

 at ournational universities. In this endeavour we wish them 

 heartily all success, and are fully sensible of their earneit- 

 ncss to effect this object. But in order to secure success, 

 it is necessary that an)- mistakes in the early steps must 

 be freely and candidly pointed out, and that the plan of 

 the campaign must be made as faultless as possible. We 

 know that there are those at Oxford who are fully sensible 

 of the deficiencies in the programme to which we have 

 called attention, and who have fought a losing battle for a 

 more thorough and comprehensive, and at the same time 

 more eclectic, plan. We would encouiage those to per- 

 severe in their endeavours, believing that they must ulti- 

 mately prevail, and that from this beginning a scheme of 

 instruction in Natural Science will ultimately arise which 

 will be a model for the whole kingdom. 



MOUISiTAINEERING IN THE SIERRA 

 NEVADA 



Mouniaineeriiig in the Sierra A'eruidti. By Clarence 

 King. (London ; Sampson Low, Marston, Low, and 

 Searle, 1S72.) 



\VERY pleasant admixture of science and personal 

 adventure, from the hand of one who is evidently a 

 sincere lover of nature, and is gifted with considerable 

 descriptive power. Men and manners in the Far West 

 are depicted with much humour ; and one chapter, en- 

 titled Kaweah's Run, narrating the escape of the author 

 from a couple of brigands who attempted to hunt him 

 down, will show that a Government surveyor's work in 

 America is apt to be more exciting than pleasant. It is a 

 good while since we have read a book so thoroyghly un- 

 affected and fresh ; redolent of the clear air of those lofty 

 Sierras where (hear it, ye Alpine climbers, who, in your 

 haunts, daily curse Jupiter Pluvius \) fine weather is the 

 rule. The description of some of Mr. King's scrambles 

 is enough to make the Alpine Club rush off in a body to 

 Mount Whitney ; but we cannot help suspecting that his 

 neck would have more than once been safer had he known 

 the rules of that fraternity and carried a good piolet. 



Mr. King does not intend his book for a scientific 

 treatise, but there are some valuable notes scattered up 

 and down its pages, and with these we must chiefly con- 

 cern ourselves. The first chapter gives a good sketch of 

 the geology and physical geography of the Sierra Nevada 

 district. It was submerged till Jurassic periods, the ocean 

 shallowing much in the later Triassic time. Then were 

 produced the long mountain waves which stretch from 

 Mexico probably into Alaska, reaching as far east as 

 ^liddle Wyoming, and forming one broad zone of crum- 

 pled ridges, whose westernmost and loftiest member is the 

 Sierra Nevada. Rivers carved the land into canons, and 

 the sea gnawed its western shores during all the Cretaceous 

 and much of the Tertiary period, in the later part of 

 which the coast ranges were rolled up, facing the Sierra 



Nevada, and converting the California valley into a great 

 inlet of the sea. Then, from newer and older ranges 

 alike, began an epoch of furious volcanic activity, till at 

 last the fires burnt low and the greater number went out 

 altogether. To this succeeded a period when, as in 

 North- Western Europe, great glaciers flowed down the 

 valleys, polishing the rocks and leaving behind them a 

 huge trail of moraine. Now they have shrunk back into 

 snow-fields ; and it is only here and there, as about 

 Mount Shasta, that we find any mention of true glaciers 

 in Mr. King's book. 



The magnificent canons, which have more than once 

 been mentioned in the pages of Nature, are frequently 

 and vividly described. This is the author's opinion of 

 their oi'igin : " Although much is due to this cause (the 

 cutting power of rapid streams) the most impressive 

 passages in the Sierra valleys are actual ruptures of the 

 rock, either the engulfment of masses of great size, as 

 Professor Whitney supposes in explanation of the peculiar 

 form of the Yosemite, or a splitting asunder in yawning 

 cracks. From the summits down half the distance to the 

 plains the canons are also carved out in broad round 

 curves by glacial action." It may seem presumptuous in 

 one who has never seen the region to differ from Mr. 

 King and his chief, at the same time we cannot help sus- 

 pecting that here, as in the Alps, it will be shown ultimately 

 that streams have been the principal agents in forming 

 gorges, and that, though they may have been guided by 

 rifts and certainly by joints, no traces of the orii,inal 

 fissures can now be found. 



Among the scientific '■ plums " of light description 

 scattered throughout the pudding, we may notice the fol- 

 lowing:— The granite of some of the mountains of the 

 Yosemite valley exhibits spheroidal structure on a colossal 

 scale, " concentric layers like the peels of an onion 

 each one about two to three feet thick." This structure 

 never descends into the mass for more than a hundred 

 feet. The author notices a peculiar flaky structure on 

 the surface of ice-worn granite (p. 147) developed, as he 

 believes, by the great pressure which it has undergone. 

 A curious case of granite polished by sand friction is 

 also recorded on p. 146, reminding us of the polished 

 basalt on the shore of Fife. Earth pillars in the canon 

 of the McCloud glacier (Mount Shasta) are described, 

 " from one to seven hundred feet high, each capped with 

 some hard lava boulder which had protected the soft 

 (trachyte) debris beneath from weakening." A curious 

 cavern in a lava floor in the same region — roughlytubular in 

 shape and more than half a mile long— doubtless pro- 

 duced, like those in Iceland, by the outburst and escape 

 of the still liquid interior of the hardening stream, is 

 worth notice ; as well as the fresh-water deposits of a 

 lake which existed through the Cretaceous and Tertiary 

 periods between the Rocky Mountains and the Blue 

 Mountains of Oregon. Nor must we in conclusion forget 

 the humorous tale of how the author, after being sternly 

 rebuked by the pateontologist of the survey for loving 

 snow-peaks better than fossils, repented and found a 

 cephalopod in the auriferous slates of Mount Bullion, and 

 so determined their age. We note but one desideratum, 

 and that is a map, which we trust will be supplied should 

 the book reach, as we hope it will, another edition. 



T. G. BOiNNEY 



