NATURE 



31 



THURSDAY, MARCH 11, 1909. 



MODERN GEOGRAPHY. 

 Geograt>liy, Structural, Physical and Comparative. 



By Prof. J. W. Gregory! F.R.S. Pp. viii + 305. 



(London : Blackie and Son, Ltd., 1908.) 

 .4 Text-hook of Geography. By G. Cecil Fry. Pp. 



XX+406. (London : W. B. Clive, L'niversity 



Tutorial Press, Ltd., 1908.) Price 45. 6d. 



WE learn from the preface to the first of these 

 works that the book is intended for use in 

 schools, and as it is likely to be much read, we take 

 this opportunity of pointing out certain features which, 

 in our opinion, are open to criticism, and might be 

 reconsidered when a second edition is called for. 

 In the first place it does not appear that sufficient 

 care has been exercised in distinguishing between 

 universally accepted generalisations and more or less 

 tentative hypotheses. The frontispiece, only very 

 briefly referred to in the text, is a case in point ; it 

 depicts the distribution of land and sea as it existed 

 at some past epoch not specified, and in the absence 

 of a word of warning is only too likely to be mistaken 

 for a truthful record of observations. In reality it is 

 to a large extent imaginary, and to render it a 

 faithful representation of the existing state of our 

 knowledge its bands of colour, so boldly and uniformly 

 washed in, should be diversified by thickh" sprinkled 

 notes of interrogation. 



The letterpress is divided into four parts, the first 

 of which treats of the structure and the materials of 

 the earth. This would have been an excellent sum- 

 mary had it not been marred by the introduction of 

 doubtful hypotheses and unqualified statements which 

 by their baldness become of questionable truth. Thus 

 in explanation of a new term, " fluidable," invented 

 by the author, we read (p. 5) : — • 



" This term expresses the fact that though the 

 internal material of the earth is rigid in the sense 

 that it resists compression like a solid, it changes 

 shape under pressure as readily as a fluid." 



Again, on p. 9 we read, " The earth therefore 

 is not an oblate spheroid. In fact it is not a 

 spheroid at all. . . ." and in the next chapter 

 we pass to the so-called tetrahedral theory of the 

 earth. The speculation this involves is in itself so 

 crude that we fail to understand on what grounds 

 it was selected as the only true representation of the 

 facts, especially as other views had been formulated 

 long previously. The admirable analysis bv Prof. 

 Love is referred to in an appendix, but in a manner 

 which awakens a suspicion as to how far the author 

 rightly appreciates its significance. 



Part ii. treats of " Earth forms and how they 

 are made." It is extremely sketchy, and contains 

 many doubtful statements. The elevation of a part 

 of New Zealand in 1855 was certainly accompanied 

 by an earthquake, but there is no ev'idence to show 

 that it was caused by one. The thorny question of 

 NO. 2054, ^'OL. 80] 



isostasy is not a subject for schoolboys, and should 

 be treated more fully or not at all. The diagram 

 of an earthquake wave (Fig. 32) is unintelligible as 

 it stands, that of a volcano (Fig. 33) crude and mis- 

 leading. 



The fragments of topographical or hydrographical 

 charts, introduced as examples of morphological types, 

 are not to be compared with those of some recent 

 American text-books. It is also unfortunate that 

 there seems to be no consistent scheme of graphic 

 representation; in the two adjacent maps on pp. 52 

 and 53, for instance, the shaded parts represent sea 

 in the one and land in the other ; in each isobaths 

 might have been introduced instead of the sporadic 

 numbers, which are confusing even to the eyes of an 

 expert. Part iii. is devoted to climate, including an 

 incomplete account of the winds, but not rain, and 

 ocean currents. Why this amount of meteorology 

 and hvdrographv should have been introduced and 

 so much of equal importance omitted is not clear; 

 in any case, the little that is given might have been 

 correct ; there is a strange blunder on pp. 84 and 85, 

 where the explanation of land and sea breezes is 

 accompanied by two diagrams, in each of which the 

 wind is represented as blowing into a region of high 

 pressure. 



The bulk of the work is contained in part iv. , which 

 includes a laudable attempt to popularise the study 

 of structural geography, based chiefly on the un- 

 finished work of Suess. In the presumed ignorance 

 of geology on the part of the reader, recourse is had 

 to a phrase — " the grain of the land " — which is made 

 to perform a task almost greater than it can bear. 

 Thus the map of the British Isles inserted at p. 102 

 is scored with red lines, corresponding to various 

 heterogeneous features all of which are to be referred 

 to " the geological grain." Not only the Caledonian 

 and the Armorican folds are thus represented, but the 

 posthumous axis of the Isle of Wight, and even the 

 Cotteswold. and Chiltern hills, which are really sculp- 

 tural rather than structural features. 



The simple diagram on p. 128 is of very doubtful 

 utility, and the more elaborate scheme in plate xvi. is 

 open to more serious criticism. The European plain, 

 left white, is shown extending from central Russia 

 through North Germany, Holland, and the middle of 

 the British Isles as far west as county Clare, from 

 which the schoolboy will either infer that the Pennine 

 chain, Snowdon, and the Wicklow hills are negligible 

 inequalities, or else suffer from a confusion of ideas. 

 On the same map, Scotland and Scandinavia are 

 designated the " Archean Plateau of North-Western 

 Europe." Plateau is a term rather oddly applied to 

 either the Scottish Highlands or the mountains of 

 Norway, unless in a very remote palasographical 

 sense. Further south the fragments of the .'Vrmorican 

 and the Variscan mountains are coloured differently 

 from the central massif of France, although on the 

 new geological map of France (scale i : 100,000) the 

 connection of the trend-lines of .\uvergne with those 

 of South Brittany on the west, and, through the 

 gneissose outliers of La Serre, with that of the Vosges 



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