November 25, 1909] 



jV.4 TURE 



93 



must reduce still further the limits within which the 

 individual worker can hope to make substantial con- 

 tributions to the Ivnowledge of his subject. The 

 danger to be guarded against is the unhealthy 

 development of the effects of specialisation. Although 

 it may no longer be possible to obtain a comprehensive 

 grasp of a whole group of sciences, there still remains 

 the lesson conveyed to the scientific world by Charles 

 Darwin's work — that extreme concentration upon one 

 particular investigation need not produce mental 

 atrophy in other directions. There may be a narrow- 

 ness of outlook produced by extreme specialisation 

 which, if not guarded against, may easily pass from 

 mere narrowness to actual illiberality of mind. This 

 in its way is quite as unscientific, as it is certainly 

 more dangerous in its immediate effect upon our 

 younger contemporaries, as the shallowness arising 

 from too great a diffusiveness. 



R. Meldola. 



ALPINE HYDROLOGY. 

 Service d'Etudes des grandes Forces hydrauliques 



(Region des Alpes.) Tome iii. R^sultats des 



Etudes et Travaux au 31 D^cembre, 1907. Pp. 



688; with maps, photographs, and diagrams. 



(French Ministry of Agriculture, 1908.) 

 TN May of last year (vol. Ixxviii., No. 2010) there 

 -L were reviewed in these columns two volumes 

 rendering an account of the initiation of a hydro- 

 logical service in France, formed for the purpose of 

 studying the rivers and watercourses of that country, 

 which were capable of developing power for, and 

 otherwise benefitting, industrial and agricultural pur- 

 suits. The purview of the inquiry was to be restricted, 

 in the first instance, to the region of the Alps, to be 

 extended later to the Pyrenees, and ultimately, no 

 doubt, to include the Vosges and the hilly districts of 

 the north and west. M the time of the issue of the 

 volumes in question, the results of these investiga- 

 tions were only forthcoming in systematised form so 

 far as the close of the year 1905, and operations had 

 been confined to a certain portion of the Alpine water- 

 shed, the work being carried out under the super- 

 vision of two engineers, MM. de la Brosse and 

 Tavernier, the former of whom reported on the basins 

 of the Arve and the Isfere, and the latter on the 

 regions of the Durance and the Var. 



The book before us is the third volume of the series, 

 and it forms a compendium of figures and statistics 

 no less impressive than its predecessors. It continues 

 the account of the studies prosecuted by M. de la 

 Brosse during the years 1906 and 1907. These relate 

 to the northern district of the .Alps, included between 

 the bed of the Rhone and the Italian frontier on the 

 one part, the Lake of Geneva and the basin of the 

 Durance on the other part. 



The southern district, from the basin of the Durance 

 to the Mediterranean littoral, under the direction of 

 M. Tavernier, is to form the subject of a subsequent 

 volume. 



M. de la Brosse commences his report with an 

 enumeration of the gauging stations within, his dis- 

 trict of 26,000 square kilometres (10,000 square miles), 

 NO. 2091, VOL. 82] 



showing that they have increased in number from 

 30 in 1903 to 60 in 1905, and to 100 at the present 

 time. The number of separate gaugings taken in 

 1907 was more than a thousand. Nearly all the 

 stations, he remarks, are of the foot-bridge type, the 

 exceptions being in watercourses of considerable 

 width, where barges were employed, and in places 

 of considerable difficulty of access, where the only 

 available method was to employ a skiff suspended 

 from a cable fixed at some suitable level. The foot- 

 bridge, from its greater security and convenience, 

 proved by far the best system, and a number of 

 interesting photographs show the variations in design 

 at different stations to meet local peculiarities. 



The instruments used for gauging were described 

 in some detail in the first volume, and the only com- 

 ments now made in connection with them, after some 

 experience of their working, relate to a few trifling 

 modifications and minor improvements in design. A 

 calibrating station for testing current-meters was 

 established at Grenoble in 1906, and this has been 

 found a considerable convenience, as, prior thereto, 

 the instruments had to be dispatched to the hydro- 

 technical laboratories of Berne or Munich. 



The station in question comprises an electrical 

 apparatus, mounted on a framed platform, set in a 

 quiescent sheet of water forming part of a fortifica- 

 tion moat. The apparatus is actuated by a triphase 

 motor of 5 horse-power, which enables various 

 degrees of speed to be imparted to a movable arm 

 carrying the instrument to be tested, ranging from 

 a few centimetres to nearly 5 metres (say, an inch to 

 16 feet) per second. By a circuit connection the 

 number of revolutions of the screw is signalled at 

 periods of from 25 to 50, and a simple calculation 

 therefrom determines the relative speed in a moving 

 medium. The process requires the services of two 

 operators and two assistants, lasts from one to two 

 hours, and (including the cost of the electric current) 

 involves an expense of il. per instrument dealt with. 



During the two years 1906-7, surveys have been 

 made of the basins of the Dranses, the Usses, the 

 Fier, the lake of Bourget, the Guiers, the Bourbre, 

 the Gfere, the CoUiferes, the Galaure, the Dr6me, the 

 Roubion, the Lez, and the Eygues, all tributaries 

 of the Rhone, and comprising an area of 918,643 

 hectares (2,300,000 acres). These basins are all 

 separately delineated in the volume under review in 

 a series of charts to a scale of 1/200,000, which are 

 accompanied by tables recording various analytical 

 particulars of the component sections, according to 

 superficies and altitude. 



A noteworthy feature of several of the smaller basins 

 (especially that of the Colliferes) is the disappearance 

 and reappearance of streams in and from subter- 

 ranean passages, resulting oftentimes in several 

 changes of name for a single watercourse, the identity 

 of which can be established without serious diflficulty 

 throughout its apparently disconnected track. For 

 example, the same waters feed successively the 

 Reval, the Orou, and the Colliferes, which thus con- 

 stitute really a single stream. 



An interesting extension of these topographical in- 

 vestigations has been made in reference to some of 



