REVIEWS 299 



The first edition, written originally in English and translated into 

 Portuguese by Dr. Antonio de Barros Barreto, appeared in 1906. The 

 many additions which appear in this second edition were written directly 

 in Portuguese by Dr. Branner, who, to his other accomplishments, adds 

 a sufficient mastery of the Portuguese language to have become also the 

 author of a Portuguese-English grammar which, like the Geologia 

 Elementar, is recognized as a standard. 



R. T. C. 



Geologische Beobachtungen in Spitzbergen. Ergebnisse der W. Filsch- 

 nerschen V or expedition nach Spitzbergen 19 10. By Professor 

 H. Philipp. Erganzungsheft Nr. 179 zu Petermanns Mit- 

 teilungen. Gotha: Justus Perthes, 1914. Pp. 46, figs. 4. 

 The rocks exposed are of Jurassic and Triassic age. The former 

 contain coal and fossiliferous beds carrying cyathophylloid corals. 

 The interior of the island is an arctic desert. As in deserts of more 

 temperate zones, the changes of temperature due to insolation are so 

 great that the accumulation of scree is excessive. So much rubble falls 

 that in some cases the mountains are completely girdled with debris even 

 to their tops; so much so that the speed of further destruction of the 

 mountain is greatly decreased. Built in this manner there are every- 

 where great debris terraces. 



The west coast is bordered by a mountain chain which precipitates 

 the moisture from the sea breezes; this makes the interior a true desert, 

 a hamada. Gravel floors and dreikanter are characteristically developed. 

 Deflation is marked, but no sand dunes are formed because the rock dust 

 is carried onto bordering glaciers and deported. Vegetation is prac- 

 tically wanting; only a few valley bottoms, in the role of oases, become 

 green during the short summer. The author calls this region an "arctic " 

 desert, in distinction from the usual polar desert. 



Generally the island is ice covered. The covering is controlled by 

 the physiography; the conformity of the glacial capping to the under- 

 lying land surface is the characteristic of the typical Spitzbergen ice 

 field. In different regions the climatic control gives rise to valley, 

 plateau, or cap ice and slope glaciers, or to combinations of these. Slope 

 ice forms troughs and kars. The slopes bordering the valley glacier 

 are ice covered to the divide top. This slope ice works down the sides 

 at right angles to the axis of the valley and to the flow of the valley 

 glacier. It works headward by bergschrund action, while the valley 



