514 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. II. No. 42. 



CURRENT NOTES ON PHYSIOGRAPHY {XVI.). 

 RUSSELL'S LAKES OF NOETH AMERICA.* 



Professor Kussell calls his new book ' a 

 reading lesson for students of geography 

 and geology.' It is appropriately dedicated 

 to Gilbert. An opening chapter discusses 

 the origin of lake basins, a subject which 

 the author's own studies in the West have 

 gi-eatly advanced; for we owe to Russell 

 not only the best account of a region of com- 

 paratively recent dislocations, where lakes 

 lie in the relatively depressed areas, but also 

 the description of such lacustrine curiosities 

 as Moses Lake, in Washington, retained in 

 a deep valley behind a barrier of sand 

 dunes, and such as the two lakes that lie in 

 basins formed by the plunge of a cataract 

 on the temporary glacial course of the Co- 

 lumbia. Other chapters concern the move- 

 ments of lake waters and the geological and 

 climatic functions of lakes. The topog- 

 raphy of lake shores is particularly well il- 

 lustrated, chiefly by plates selected from 

 publications of the U. S. Geological Survey, 

 now placed more conveniently in the hands 

 of teachers and students. The relations of 

 lakes to climatic conditions, the resultant 

 composition of their waters and the variation 

 of their volume are fully considered. The 

 book closes with an excellent account of 

 certain special lacustral histories, includ- 

 ing the pleistocene lakes of the Laurentian 

 basin. Lake Agassiz, the pleistocene lakes 

 of the Great Basin and certain lakes of the 

 more remote past. If this book has the 

 circulation that it deserves, the rising gen- 

 eration of geographers will greatly profit 

 by it. 



A SEICHE IN LAKE SUPERIOR. 



A CLASS of movements of lake waters, 

 briefly treated in Eussell's book, is the 

 ' seiche,' or slow oscillation of level, long 



*Giiin & Co., Boston, 1895, 125 pages, with numer- 

 ous illustrations. Price, §1.65. 



known and minutely studied in Switzerland, 

 especially by Forel; vaguely recorded and 

 hardly studied at all in this country. A 

 strong seiche was observed in Chequamegon 

 Bay, near the west end of Lake Superior, 

 on September 11, last. It rose in a 'wall 

 of water ' about four feet high, extending 

 across the bay and rushing in upon the low 

 shore, where it did much damage, lifting up 

 the logs of corduroy roads, breaking log 

 booms and drifting the logs away, and 

 even putting out the fires under a few steam 

 boilers. The water gradually subsided, 

 bearing back to the lake a confused flotsam 

 of 'roots, grass, tree tops and other debris.' 

 Mr. G. M. Burnham, of the Ashland (Wis.) 

 Daily Press, calls my attention to the occur- 

 rence at Harbor Springs, near the north end 

 of Lake Michigan, also on September 11, of 

 a gradual depression of the water 'fully 

 five feet,' followed by a gradual rise, and 

 other minor changes of level. Although 

 these peculiar disturbances are sometimes 

 strong enough to break boats away from 

 their moorings, and although the auto- 

 matic records of water levels maintained 

 by the army engineers at various lake 

 ports show minor seiches of almost con- 

 tinual occurrence, no serious study of their 

 varied phenomena has yet been under- 

 taken. 



BATHYMETRY OF THE ENGLISH LAKES. 



Dr. H. E. Mill describes his bathymet- 

 rical survey of the English lakes in the 

 July and August numbers of the (London) 

 Geographical Journal, with many illustra- 

 tions from photographs and an excellent 

 series of tinted maps by Bartholomew. The 

 view of Wastwater is a particularly good 

 illustration of a lake in its hill-setting ; 

 not simply a sheet of water bounded 

 by a distant shore, such as appears in 

 most pictures of lakes. The following ta- 

 ble presents a number of the results 

 gained : 



