752 REPORT — 1895. 



former. The peaks and towers of the arctic icebergs are supposed to have been 

 formed by the influence of ocean-currents wearing away the softer part of the ice 

 mass under water until the natural action of gravitation causes them to upset. But 

 why have the antarctic icebergs a different form, for there are great currents in 

 the antarctic waters ? And icebergs which have reached as far north as the south 

 of New Zealand maintain this antarctic character. I can see no other reason for 

 this dissimilarity between the bergs of the north and those of the south, but that 

 the arctic icebergs as a rule must pass through climates which in temperature 

 rapidly change from one extreme to another, and that they take much longer time 

 in floating southwards than the antarctic icebergs do in moving northwards. 



2. The Oceanography of the North Sea. By H. N. Dickson, F.R.S.JE. 



This paper gives some accoimt of recent physical work in the North Atlantic, 

 the North 8ea and the Baltic, in which the Swedish, German, Danish, Norwegian 

 and British Governments have co-operated. The surface phenomena at different 

 seasons are discussed, a special report on that section of the joint work having been 

 drawn up by the author. 



The importance of further research, especially in the interests of our fishing 

 industries, is pointed out, and an international scheme, due to Professor Pettersson 

 of Stockholm, described. 



3. Oceanic Circulation. By Dr. John Murray, F.R.S.E, 



4. The Maps used by Herodotus. By J, L. Myres, M.A. 



The geographical digressions in the History of Herodotus are intended to 

 supply the place of an atlas, and can be partially reinterpreted into pictorial form. 

 That such pictorial maps were used, even before Herodotus's time, is clear from 

 V. 49. Herodotus's descriptions are intentionally diagrammatic, and only give 

 skeleton-outlines, on which the details are understood to be tilled in. The general 

 proportions are indicated, not by formal latitude and longitude (ascribed to 

 Eratosthenes), but (1) by lists of places which are in the same straight line (ii. 34, 

 iv. 181 ff.), and by columns of names which run up and down or across the map 

 (iv. 37, V. 49), which is thus subdivided into rectangular areas (iv. 37, 99), or parallel 

 strips (iv. 181) ; (2) by the presumption that a general symmetry is maintained in 

 the distribution of land and water N. and S. of a natural ' equator ' (ii. 26, 33 ; 

 iii. 115; iv. 36, 37). 



This 'equator' is indicated in two different real-latitudes in the different 

 digressions, and these two 'equators' are associated with different principal 

 N. and S. meridians. 



Hence we may infer that Herodotus used two distinct maps based upon inde- 

 pendent traditions and explorations, each best adapted to illustrate a different 

 section — namely, the Greek and the Persian 'halves' of the known world^but 

 not consistent with one another in the parts where they overlap. 



A. The Ionian navigating-chart of the Mediterranean and Euxine: an early 

 edition is used by Aristagoras of Miletos in v. 49. Its principal meridian lies 

 through the mouth of the Nile, the Cilician Gates, Sinope, and the mouth of 

 the Danube ; its ' equator ' is the line of the Eoyal Road, extended from Miletos 

 on the Mseander to the ford of the Euphrates, produced westwards through the 

 Pillars of Herakles, and eastwards («) by Aristagoras, down the Choaspes con- 

 ceived as flowing east, past Susa into the Eastern Ocean ; (b) by Herodotus him- 

 self superimposed on the Pactyas equator of Map B. 



B. The chart founded on Phoenician and other Oriental sources, and completed 

 by Skylax of Karyanda, as a survey for Darius of the Persian empire. Principal 

 meridian : a line of nationalities from the mouth of the Choaspes to the mouth of 



